A friend very kindly shared some pieces of aptenia with me. I just love it; it looks a lot prettier in person. I know it grows well in California, I've seen it growing there. It should meet all your requirements. Here's some info from another posting: Here is a link that might be useful: aptenia

I've been pleasantly surprised by the durability of ajuga reptans, just about any variety of it. I thought it needed a cooler climate, until I saw that it had turned wild and was beneath the grass in several spots in my lawn. Right in there with some wild violets too. So taking a hint from what worked, I bought more ajuga, and it is all living in both my south Alabama garden and in our Massachusetts garden which is a zone 5B. Awesome plant. I love the bluish-purple fuzzy flower spikes it sends up too.

HippoKat, not sure as to your climate zone, though would have thought ground cover conifers such as Juniperus horizontalis Glauca & other prostrate conifers would be suitable. Especially if you added some course sand to the soil to get the plants started? allan

Thaks for the suggestions, LT. Whitecap...let me explain better. I'm at the end of the street, at the middle of a cul-de-sac, with a pie-shaped lot. The front yard isn't very big, maybe a bit larger than some zero-lot-line houses, but the backyard is HUGE. The neighborhood was built in the early 60's. The section I'm talking about has the driveway to the north, house to the west, sidewalk to the front door on the south, and city-sidewalk to the east. I'm removing all of the grass from that section and part of the section on the other side of the walk to the front door, south of that walk. I want the shrubs and perennials with something planted as a groundcover/living mulch/whatever in between. There will be "swaths" of groundcover, partly to keep from having to keep adding mulch and partly because there's too much ground to NOT have anything more than mulch there. I don't care if it's a native that "everyone" calls a weed, like horseherb or something along that line. I just need something to help keep the soil where it is (there's a slight incline from the house to the street, enough for water to run down the concrete) and to "look nice". The front yard doesn't turn into a lake like the backyard, the house blocks the rainwater runoff. I don't want mondo grass or asian jasmine, both are way too over-used and I don't want to deal with either. Sorry. I figure I'm already being different by removing the grass, might as well go all the way!