Hello,

I live in North Florida/Central Florida (depending on your point of view), and I absolutely hate mowing the lawn. Partly I just don't have time to do it, I work 7 days a week and live alone. I can't really afford to hire someone to do it regularly, which is why I work 7 days a week in the first place.

Anyway, I'm very much interested in replacing the grass with something that won't grow too high, won't make the neighbors too angry, and can handle the intense florida sun. My property has a lot of shade trees but most of them are in the back yard, which I'm already letting grow wild.

Thyme I think.

I'm not sure about native...but I live in Orlando and after last year's hurricanes, I have replaced the grass areas in my front yard with jasmine. Smell great, grows well and is pretty drought tolerant (just stops flowering when there is no rain, but otherwise is fine.)

Both of those are interesting ideas. I'm already using Jasmine to cover my hideous satellite dish.

I would like to get something that is pretty prolific so that I don't have to buy tons and tons of it, and so that it will be able to compete with grass.

Mint is prolific from what I hear. And for what you want you could probably direct sow the seeds which would be cheap.

I had just heard that the thyme could stand up to some foot traffic so it sounded like a good one.

sounds good to me. I'm a big fan of thyme anyway, so I wouldn't mind being able to get some by taking some lawn clippings. I'll have to look into when is the best time to plant.

I think all of these options are pretty prolific and quite honestly, if not contained a bit, can be invasive....so spreading shouldn't be a problem.