Look for salt tolerance, if you're near the water.

Wedelia is pretty salt tolerant, but needs to be kept in check.

My mom has a combo of wedelia and mimosa in the front yard at her waterfront home.

Crushed shell paths and perennial beds are popular and very Floridian.

Paspalum grass is being used in these situations.......you don't have to mow it, but it will look better if you cut it back and fertilize a couple times a year.

Weedelia is pretty with the yellow flowers tho runners grow into beds and must pulled. Its easy to mow.

I guess the previous owners grew weedelia here.... I hate it. To me it is ugly. I think it is aptly named WEED'dila

I like it. Those sunny flowers all over the yard. Its better than the spanish needles, balsam apple, and florida indigo that grows unwanted everywhere. But then i also like dollar weed. I noticed next door under a small oak is the largest medallions of dollarweed i ever saw...i thought 'thats lovely.'

When i was a kid Lantana was thought as a poisonous weed, now people buy it and plant it in the yard.

Wedelia is a category II invasive. And not something I would ever plant unless I wanted to live with it forever and have my neighbors curse me.

Its better than the spanish needles, balsam apple, and florida indigo that grows

No, it's not better than Spanish Needles. Bidens Alba is a native plant with so many possible uses that Julia Morton, the grand dame of FL botany, fully expected it to be a major cash crop for the state.

Read up on it. It may change your opinion.

I'm not a big fan of wedelia because I don't like the smell of the leaves, nor that it LOVES the conditions in my yard and grows very rapidly. I have it because my grandpa planted it decades ago - around the same time my parents did. It is much better behaved in my mother's yard - perhaps because it's much sandier than mine - and looks nice when well-maintained.

But I'm not looking for a salt tolerant groundcover either.

Who plants weedelia...it just happens lol...for ease of care and up keep it works for me. The butterflies like it. It has no seeds that stick to my clothes. And if i don't get to mow i have a carpet of yellow flowers instead. I missed mowing the front yard this weekend so here is a picture.

This second photo illustrates the runners...this is one runner with some flowers on it.

Not sure of the name, people call it 'sensitive plant' because the leaves fold when you touch them. My whole front lawn is filled with it. Beautiful, green, doesn't get any water and gets mowed weekly. I believe its in the Mimosa family.

Jane

I have that too, jane. People call it 'sunshine mimosa' I believe. The stems/roots are very wiry & tough and can be difficult to remove from beds, but the bees love it and the flowers are so pretty.

Mine dies back during the winter months, and I spread annual winter rye seed, which enriches the soil.

Good idea about the rye. Mine stays very thick and green all winter. The lawn guys use round-up in the beds to keep it out. Not thrillled about that but it’s almost impossible to dig it out with the underground runners.

I love it, soft and walkable. Guys mow it every week which keeps it from flowering.

Another plus is you never need to water it. We do not have sprinklers and it never gets water, nor fertilization.

Great lawn replacemen!

Thanks @jane_ny for the pics and info. What area do you live in and about how often do you need to mow it?

Perennial peanut is another very pretty ground cover, although it can be expensive to get started:

http://gardeningsolutions.ifas.ufl.edu/plants/ornamentals/perennial-peanut.html

We live in Sarasota. The lawn guys come every week but it doesn’t need to be mowed. It will get about 8 inches high if left alone and will get little fuzzy, purple flowers you don’t have to mow it at all.

I dont have it in the back yard which is mostly weeds. I’m going to plant plugs of it there when the weather cools. My back yard is part shade so I don’t know if it will take. It likes a lot of sun.

Jane

We're in 10B, and just had our entire front yard covered in sweet potatoes of different varieties. And now....we have a LOT of sweet potatoes, too. The foliage was just beautiful! We also have a big patch of longevity spinach and perennial peanut. Delicious and beautiful!

I always thought a yard of mint would be nice but the neighbors would kill me lol

We went with perennial peanut and it’s done well. But... we do have a few weeds that are driving me crazy. They are vine like with runners. From far away you cannot tell but they are fast growing and I don’t want them to crowd out the peanut. Any suggestions on residential grade herbicides or some natural mix that won’t harm the peanut?

I've seen sunshine mimosa and perennial peanut planted together in Sarasota, and it's beautiful with the yellow and pink blossoms. There is a house on the street with Selby Gardens that has Sunshine Mimosa.

The best way to plant either of these is to lay cardboard, then a thick layer of mulch to kill all the weeds. Cut holes in the cardboard where you want the plants or plugs to go, then turn 1-gallon containers upside down over the holes. Spread the mulch, then you have clear areas to plant the plugs or plants. The plants will spread over the mulch and you won't have much of a problem with weeds coming up while they are filling in. You'll have a few weeds, but they'll be easy to pull. The cardboard and mulch will decompose and feed the plants and the earthworms.

I've never personally done this, but my friend did, and her groundcovers spread much faster than if they were having to compete with weeds.