Tired of mowing? The amazingly tough perennial peanut can replace your entire lawn – or parts of it – with beauty and style. A relative of the edible peanut, this plant blankets the earth with flat-as-a-pancake foliage topped with tiny yellow flowers that appear on and off all year.
Of all South Florida’s low growing groundcovers, this one probably takes the least care…and still looks fabulous. This plant is durable, tenacious and long-lived. It can work not only as a complete lawn replacement but also in hard to mow areas like a small strip of lawn by a driveway.
Because of its high nutritive value, perennial peanut (Arachis glabrata) has been coined the “Alfalfa Queen of the South.” In Florida, perennial peanut is planted on approximately 30,000 acres with a noteworthy increase of close to 5,000 acres in the last 10 years.
Perennial peanut is used mostly for hay, but also can be used for grazing and ornamental ground cover. It is readily eaten by livestock (horses, beef and dairy cattle, sheep, goats, gestating sows, deer, rabbits, poultry, turkeys, and ostriches).
Sources: South Florida Plant Guide, UF|IFAS