If you are looking for something to spill over you edging stones...thyme is wonderful! Fragrant and useful AND evergreen! There are multiple varieties that have the same growth habit, but will provide you with different flavors for culinary use.

I didn't want to post this before because it would take your post off the top, but I wouldn't do a boxwood if you want a low growing border plant. Around here, a lot of people use trailing juniper, but I don't know how well it does in your area.

I love my liriope for edging. I mow it when I see new growth in early spring and it looks fresh until we get prolonged triple digits and after three years I either edge another garden or plant it under trees where it's too shady for lawn. I am in process of replacing my front lawn because it's just too shady for grass. I have a large area that is all liriope with a dwarf yaupon. It's so much better than bare soil.

Thyme is nice too! I use the dwarf thymes around the stones in the patio.

My vote would be for Louisiana phlox...................they are evergreen, don't get very tall and bloom beautifully for several weeks in early Spring.

Liriope is very nice and readily available, though we've found performance varies a lot by location. The variegated form thrives in our DFW clay with morning or mid-day sunlight, stagnates (sulks?) in heavy shade, and declines in full afternoon sun even with extra water - especially where placed next to pavement. May be different with the non-variegated variety or in Houston's higher humidity/lower temps.

We've been experimenting with some blue-eyed grasses (sisyrinchium) as alternatives to liriope. Have been most happy so far with the 'Suwannee' cultivar of s. angustifolium. This one has true-blue flowers and remains around 8 or 10 inches tall, though other varieties have more violet-blue flowers and can reach twice that size. Still a bit hard to find/expensive relative to liriope, but availability appears to be improving. The long lasting flowers make it worth the hunt.

Believe even the tiniest boxwood still wants to top out at a couple feet, which seems tall for front of border. Nice thing about boxwood is they can be chopped much shorter than their natural height and still look good, but adds to the maintenance effort.

Here is a link that might be useful: Sisyrinchium spp. âSuwanneeâ Blue-eyed grass

What is monkey grass? Back in the 70's, my parents had their entire border of what they called monkey grass and it looked awesome. (I googled it and can't find a picure that looked like what they have, but in the spring/summer, I see it in the big box stores.) It is similar to liriope, but what I'm thinking of isn't varigated, is smaller, dark green, and doesn't (that I remember) flower.

Lynnmarie,
I can't tell you how many times that I have looked up the difference between mondo grass (monkey grass) and liriope (lilyturf). I don't know why I can never remember :-) They are both available in variegated forms.

I'll leave it to the experts to explain the difference...basically mondo is shorter and has blue berries or fruit. Liriope has darker berries. They both bloom.

Here is a link that might be useful: liriope-vs-mondo-grass

Believe someone posted this link on the NTP forum, but thread has expired. More details than most care for, but some nice summaries and photos of the 19 studied cultivars starting about a third of the way through the dissertation.

Here is a link that might be useful: A HORTICULTURAL STUDY OF LIRIOPE AND OPHIOPOGON: ....