Erika wrote:



We're looking at two particular plants, Vinca Minor & Irish Moss.
Does anyone have experience with either of these plants or PERSONAL
EXPERIENCE with any others they can suggest?

Vinca may work very well for your purpose, although it typically prefers a
soil with higher organic content than a sandy soil (and even moisture
levels). It is also somewhat viney, so I am not sure how easy it would be
to rake pine straw out of it. Mine gets raked a bit in early spring to
remove any remaining fallen leaves, but it's a pretty light raking.

Irish moss (Sagina subulata) is not a true moss and it prefers full sun. I
doubt its ability to do much in the way of erosion control also.

Euphorbia amygdaloides var. robbiae makes an excellent groundcover for
this type of situation - evergreen, tolerates dry shade, spreads nicely,
good for erosion control. But it won't tolerate any foot traffic and may
be difficult to remove the pine straw. OTOH, you could just leave the pine
straw as a mulch.

pam - gardengal