Perennial peanut as a ground cover?

Anyone here using perennial peanut as a ground cover? I think I'm just about finished trying to make St. Augustine work in our front lawn. Our tree canopy is too thick to keep the grass happy, plus St. Augustine is thirsty. We have sprinklers fed by a deep well, but rain has been sparse lately. Water restrictions have us down to two days per week. Plus it takes electricity to power that pump.

Then there's the dollar weed. It's like the Terminator of weeds. It has struck us big time, and it's winning the war.

Looks like perennial peanut has no natural enemies, looks good, doesn't need much water, easily crowds out the weeds, requires little mowing, and fertilizes itself. Apparently it grows happily here in Central Florida.

I'm mainly wondering how it will work in shade. If it doesn't bloom, that's cool. I just want the green. So, any experience with it? Or, any other recommendations for a ground cover? We already have beds of ferns and wedelia, so I'm looking for something short to replace the grass.

Thanks for any advice.

Never done perennial peanut, but gave my mom a cutting of vinca that was growing in my Baltimore yard. That one little cutting has gone absolutely bonkers, providing tons of ground cover in and around her garden. It might keep you on your toes a bit, it tends to march all over the place :)

If you haven't looked into it, it sounds like something similar to what you're looking for. It's low-ish ground cover, tolerant of all types of light, and apparently does OK with little water (once established - I don't know this, just what I've looked up for this post). The flowers are quite pretty.

edit - Why is this thread in "Off-Topic" instead of "Grass-roots"?

I'm afraid it may be sparse in deep shade as it likely needs the same amount of sunlight as your St. Augustine lawn. St. Aug is the most shade tolerant warm season turfgrass you can get so if it's suffering, the perennial peanut may never get established. With that said, I still like the idea of the perennial peanut because of it's low water requirements and the fact that being a legume, it fixes nitrogen in the soil and requires little fertilizer. I say do a test patch and see what happens. You may be able to get the rhizomes from University of Florida. I'm a landscape architect and horticulturist by the way but I have never grown perennial peanuts.

You might try Asian Jasmine. It's a good choice for a durable, low-maintenance ground cover that will tolerate lots of shade.

David, I've only seen peanut work in full sun. Agree with the Asian Jasmine recommendation.

Garages, pavers, and gravel grow very well in full shade. Project cars parked under trees also require little water and generally have no problem reproducing. I think you will have a wonderful well established lawn if you yank out that resource hungry St Augustine and replace it with a healthy feeding of project car. You should have no problem getting some off of the Florida Craigslist.

:D

nocones wrote: Garages, pavers, and gravel grow very well in full shade. Project cars parked under trees also require little water and generally have no problem reproducing. I think you will have a wonderful well established lawn if you yank out that resource hungry St Augustine and replace it with a healthy feeding of project car. You should have no problem getting some off of the Florida Craigslist. :D

I nominate this for SAY WHAT!

It needs full sun, huh? I'll check out Asian Jasmine. Thanks for the tip. Our tree guys regularly trims our Live Oaks, but that canopy is still fairly thick.

And no, no lawn full of cars, rocks and stones. I like green.

so.....British Racing ? or maybe Oxford?