THEY creep, they crawl. They spread, they sprawl.
Nothing beats low-growing ground covers for traversing large areas of yard.
Although most won't take the same foot traffic as grass, they're still excellent substitutes for providing low swaths of continuous foliage or flowers to fill in around larger shrubs and trees. In fact, some ground covers may rot if too much water is applied. Some claim that ground covers also inhibit weeds. Perhaps that's true over time. But most ground covers spread at least three to four feet, which means when you first plant, you're leaving some pretty big gaps of bare earth just beckoning to pesky weeds.