Most low growing, mat-like groundcovers will take occasional but not constant foot traffic - the same dieback and "tracks" kids and dogs produce in your lawn will be duplicated in groundcovers. The only way around it is to use pavers, turf stone or other durable surface material in obvious pathways. Any living plant, even English ivy, will be damaged by constant foot traffic - "stepables" is only a marketing program, not a guarantee :-)

Finally famous! Now I'm waiting for the Nobel Prize money to roll in. I've had dogs for decades and do not clean up after them. It takes about 4 days on my yard for the flies and roly polies to take care of it. After 3 days you can step on it without it sticking to your shoe (ask how I know). After 4 days it has melted down below the surface into the soil. I'm not saying yours will do this right now, but it makes a nice goal. I believe the keys to this is to be fully organic with your fertilizer and to cut herbicide and insecticide down to absolute minimum - as needed only. The sooner you start with organics the sooner your yard will regain its health. I'm talking weeks, not years. The application rate for organics is normally 15-20 pounds per 1,000 square feet. If you have not used any organics in awhile, it would be best to start with 5-10 pounds per 1,000 and repeat in a month. That will build the population of microbes your soil need to process the organics quickly. If you do too much too fast there will be the slightest hint of spoiled milk (spoiler - it's not slight). In two months you should really notice a difference in your soil and in the lawn. Morph's favorite organic fertilizers are soybean meal and Milorganite. Mine are alfalfa pellets (rabbit chow) and ordinary corn meal. It all depends on what you can find at your local feed store under $10 or $15 per bag.

Thank you. I have been shy posting here because I kill more than I buy these days. Bad winter , bad wet years. I guess I might have posted in the wrong thread since I did not get rid of a lawn, but started out with raw hill country marl. I guess I was supposed to put a lawn in but I never got the memo. I wondered why I was supposed to make my beautiful hill country look like some place in North Carolina or Pennsylvania when I moved out here, because I thought it was beautiful the way it was. Things have to live in my conditions.. I had no choice with the water use and me living on Rainwater. Texas is a hard place to garden . It is either TOO hot TOO cold, TOO dry, TOO wet and it can go from too dry (right now my cistern is 1/4 full) to TOO wet (please I need the water ). Don't get me started on the soil. I have no soil so I have been bringing yards of Decomposed granite sand , gravel and compost in . The limey marl is about 1" under the soil in the area of this garden. Nothing really grew here very tall. It is ongoing. We are too hot for northern opuntias , too cold for southern cactus. I have learned to collect from southern New mexico and the northern Big bend area. I like their Eastern grasslands over the dryer points to the west, but mountainous Arizona has plants I can use. I also look for limestone soiled lands and not sandstone based lands. It isn't totally hill country. I guess I am not a purist about anything.

Zoysia is not a low light or shady grass, period. Do not install Zoysia, even cultivars that claim tolerance for "shady" areas, in shade. Go with four hours of sunlight minimum--part shade--absolute minimum, and I'd strongly recommend full sun. So there's that, of course. Otherwise...uh, yeah. Meyer has been around for...oh, what, fifty years and more? It's certainly established, but not what I'd call a modern cultivar. Still, it's a nice enough grass. Coarser-bladed. Good cold tolerance and susceptible to large patch. A little quick research shows that Emerald isn't very winter-hardy and is more susceptible to brown patch and heavy thatch (all Zoysia is thatchy, however, if overfed or treated improperly, just like my bluegrass...which has no thatch because there are plenty of ways around that issue). Japanese Zoysia is very coarse-bladed (some like that, many don't--I prefer a fine-bladed grass myself). Cold tolerance is better, but it's susceptible to large patch. Your climate classes just about the same as mine, but a bit warmer. It looks like the grass goes brown in October sometime and greens up in early May (Zoysia). As I look at it, Zoysia might be worth a try, but I wouldn't expend too terribly much in terms of resources here. Now, armed with your locale and whatnot, your soil is sandy, your climate is maritime, and any grass is likely to need a bit of a helping hand. Even Zoysia. Bluegrass might actually be a better bet...but I understand the lean toward Zoysia. KBG would tend to go dormant in summer and look good in winter. Zoysia, the other way around. Given the sandy soil and tendency for constant breezes, though, I'd now lean much more toward plugs (with existing roots) or sod (cut into 2x2" large plugs with existing roots) to start a new lawn. It's going to be easier to keep that damp in May.