I'm pulling out the grass and weeds in the front yard and need to put something down for a groundcover in between the plants. So far, there's lantana and salvias, with some iris and I'm working on the rest of the landscape. It's the front yard, east facing, full sun, standard black clay for the Dallas area. I don't want to have to provide supplemental water once it's established, and I'd prefer something that doesn't have to be mowed or edged constantly. I can handle having to get out there and neaten it up every 4-6 weeks.

Thanks for any suggestions!

Whitecap...let me explain better.

I'm at the end of the street, at the middle of a cul-de-sac, with a pie-shaped lot. The front yard isn't very big, maybe a bit larger than some zero-lot-line houses, but the backyard is HUGE.

The neighborhood was built in the early 60's. The section I'm talking about has the driveway to the north, house to the west, sidewalk to the front door on the south, and city-sidewalk to the east. I'm removing all of the grass from that section and part of the section on the other side of the walk to the front door, south of that walk. I want the shrubs and perennials with something planted as a groundcover/living mulch/whatever in between. There will be "swaths" of groundcover, partly to keep from having to keep adding mulch and partly because there's too much ground to NOT have anything more than mulch there.

I don't care if it's a native that "everyone" calls a weed, like horseherb or something along that line. I just need something to help keep the soil where it is (there's a slight incline from the house to the street, enough for water to run down the concrete) and to "look nice". The front yard doesn't turn into a lake like the backyard, the house blocks the rainwater runoff.

I don't want mondo grass or asian jasmine, both are way too over-used and I don't want to deal with either. Sorry. I figure I'm already being different by removing the grass, might as well go all the way!

You might be a tad too North for wedelia. But I grew it here in San Antonio.

Here is how this spot looked last summer. You can see it still looks pretty weedy. I hadn't cleaned it up real good yet. Lots of bermuda and other stuff:

And here is how it looks now. The low stuff next to the concrete with the white spots is the frogfruit in flower.

Tex-Ag-95, this plant might work for you. It spreads by runners overground, which makes it easy to pull back and control. It would need to be edged periodically, as I think most groundcovers would. I like it b/c it stays evergreen and during the winter when the salvia, etc die back the ground cover stays green. And it really doesn't need a lot of water. Mine gets watered, but I've seen this plant growing on unattended roadsides, pure sand, etc. It's tough, but I don't find it quite as invasive as bermuda.

I also have the wedelia, which I love, but it is a little wimpy in heat and requires attention even in dry shade.