One word: Wedelia. I have ligustrum and viburnum bordering my backyard and got tired of annually replacing the mulch so I switched to lava rocks. My year man said that wrecked his mower blades so I put in.....wedelia. It has very pretty yellow flowers and covers the ground....quickly. If you are prepared to keep it trimmed and not let it get wild in your yard it can be a very nice ground cover. It can be spread easily from cuttings (just clip a few, toss them where you want them to grow and cover with dirt-in a few days they will root and take off.

Wedelia is pure evil in plant form! It will spread from any planter or bed. Once it has taken root in your lawn it will send runners in all directions. It grows in full sun or partial shade. It can choke out grasses and out-compete most any plant you have except maybe Brazillian Pepper. And yes, it is very easy to root from cuttings. In fact if you hit it with a weed eater or even trim it and dont pick up every single piece it will root right where it falls and start from there. If you want a plant that will cause you nightmares and tons of backbreaking weed-pulling then Wedelia is the plant for you!

Did you see the post on chenille as ground cover? See link below.

Here is a link that might be useful: Chenille as ground cover

Paulie, you are being too hard on wedelia. Yes, it spreads anywhere, everywhere.....if you don't take care of it. Once a week with the weed trimmer and/or hedge clippers and it looks fine.

But here's a funny story. When I first put it in I would check to see how it was growing every few days. It was doing nothing, no growth, and looked brown. I couldn't figure out how such a fast growing plant could do so poorly. After about 2 months I mentioned it to the guy that cuts my yard. He told me that he was spraying it with round-up every week because he thought it was a weed and wanted to keep it out of my hedgerow! And still it survived (barely).

Now if you want to single out something that is a really awful thing to having growing then torpedo weed is your candidate. I had that in my hedgerow before the wedelia. The only chemical that will kill it for good has been banned.

lol, love that story, Bill.

Anna

OK. But one day, one of those clippings will fall from a bag or trash can. Or get flung to a neighbors yard by a trimmer. It's considered an "invasive" for VERY good reasons. There are many reasons you can't buy it in a store. It is currently covering over half of my acre and a half and will probably take me years to eradicate completely. The previous owners planted it and thought it was a good flower bed covering. They actually took 10k off the cost of the house when I purchased it for what it did to the landscape.