My wife and I recently discovered perennial peanut (Arachis glabrata).

Or, rather, we just learned more about this awesome alternative to turf grass.

It’s a versatile groundcover with ovalish leaves and distinctive school bus yellow flowers that we’ve seen for years in roadway medians, along parking lot curbs, and peeking through polyculture lawns in our Central Florida neighborhood.

We really didn’t know much about these plants until we started looking around online. And what we found convinced us to add some to our landscape.

What Is Perennial Peanut Plant?

When I want to find out more about alternative turf grass plants that grow in Florida, there’s one place I turn: the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences — UF/IFAS, for short. They have tons of information dedicated to teaching people on how to grow perennial peanut, where they grow, and how to best care for this alternative turf grass in Florida.

As it turns out perennial peanut is a terrific turf grass alternative because it’s a low-profile groundcover that requires little maintenance and is easy to grow once it’s established. Plus, it’s well adapted to the sandy soils we have in Central Florida. Their little golden flowers add a pop of color, and the green foliage looks like traditional turf grass seen in so many yards.

Getting Down To The Basics

I wanted to know more. So, I asked Tina McIntyre, a Florida-Friendly Landscaping Agent at the UF/IFAS Extension in Seminole County, Florida, for the scoop on perennial peanut. “Perennial peanut is a fantastic ground cover for full sun areas and typically uses less water and needs less maintenance like mowing,” she says. “Once perennial peanut is established, you can calibrate your irrigation system to use less water than a typical stand of St. Augustine.

What’s more, perennial peanut is drought tolerant, has no known pests, and doesn’t really require much if any fertilizer.

It grows and spreads by way of rhizomes — underground roots that creep horizontally below the soil line. This creates a sort of mat or netting that is terrific for staving off erosion. And because this legume forage plant grows so quickly once it’s set root, it can help cover bare spots in the yard in short order.

McIntyre adds, “This plant is ideal for areas with little to no irrigation and direct sunlight.”

I can see why this plant turns up along so many roadsides and parking lots then. But don’t worry, fellow homeowners. “These benefits can also be realized by homeowners that select to install this plant,” explains McIntyre.

One problem might crop up for those who live in certain deed-restricted communities. You see, perennial peanut isn’t a traditional turf grass, like Bahia, St. Augustine, or fescue. “If the resident lives in a homeowners association, we do recommend they first speak with their HOA about any landscape enhancements,” advises McIntyre.

Where You Can Grow Perennial Peanut

Perennial peanut plants are a pretty common sight here in Central Florida. It can serve as an evergreen grass in frost-free regions. But where my wife and I live in Central Florida, we do see frost at least a few times a year. Our ornamental peanuts tend to lose their green color during that time. This leaves behind just the brown rhizomes. If this is a problem for you, one thing we do is fill in bare patches of the yard with rye grass that can help keep the yard green during the winter.

However, before we just started planting ornamental peanut in our yard, we wanted to make sure it’s safe to grow in Florida. The last thing we wanted to do was introduce an invasive plant to our yard. Upon my research, I found out that perennial peanut is native to Argentina, Paraguay, and Brazil. However, it’s widely used in the United States for multiple agricultural and horticultural purposes.

McIntyre assured me perennial peanut is OK to grow in my wife’s and my Central Florida yard. “They are indeed not native to Florida, however, the University of Florida IFAS Assessment classifies perennial peanut as ‘not a problem species.’” Whew!

A huge benefit for us is the incredible tolerance of this hardy turf grass alternative for growing in dry, sandy conditions. And that’s the case with much of our yard. Huge swaths of our landscape have sandier soil with little shade. This leaves much of the landscape exposed to the brutal heat of the summertime sun here in Florida. Perennial peanut grows well in areas of full sun and partial shade.

Seems like perennial peanut might be just what the doctor ordered for those more troublesome parts of our yard.

Planting Perennial Peanut

Some people grow this plant as a monoculture groundcover that’s also pollinator friendly. We haven’t replaced our entire yard with this turf grass alternative. Instead, we’re interspersing it throughout parts of our polyculture lawn to see how it grows and allow it to fill in where there are bare patches with no grass. We’ve seen some success with this.

We planted our ornamental peanut plants in random areas a few feet apart from each other. However, if you’re planting perennial peanut plants as plugs to create a “lawn” from the plant, you’ll need to space them much more closely than that. It’s recommended to plant perennial peanut 12″ to 18″ apart for thicker coverage.

McIntyre includes some of the best tips for growing perennial peanut plants in your yard. “They will thrive in areas with little to no irrigation, so seek to irrigate this plant first with the rain and then provide minimal supplemental irrigation after establishment. Prior to planting be sure to enhance your area with organic matter and soil enhancements. And be sure to always use mulch.”

Where To Buy Perennial Peanut Plants Near You

We’ve been buying our perennial peanuts in 1-gallon pots. You can also buy perennial peanut in mats of sod. However, this can get very expensive very quickly. Perennial peanut does cost a few bucks per plant, which is much more expensive than traditional turf lawn grass plugs tend to cost.

We’ve also had a tough time finding perennial peanut. It’s not necessarily carried at your local big-box home store. A couple of local garden nurseries had the plants in stock, and that’s where we’ve been buying ours.

Here’s One Thing We Flopped At

One of the only downsides to growing perennial peanut as a turf grass alternative? It’s not really tolerant of heavy foot traffic. We noticed this when we tried growing some near a hammock that we use pretty frequently. I guess we learned that lesson the hard way.

We installed some paver stones in that area to help keep shoes off the yard there and give the plants a chance to grow. They’re starting to come back in that spot, but we’ll see how they do in the long run.

How To Care For Perennial Peanut

As I’ve said, perennial peanut is about as low maintenance a turf grass alternative as you can get. Yes, you’ll need to water these plants well when they’re just getting established. But once they’re growing on their own, they generally don’t need an overabundance of water. They do just fine in drier conditions — but do make sure they’re not looking wilty or dried out. Perennial peanut plants might be drought resistant, but they’re not drought proof.

Generally, these plants don’t need much if any fertilizer. My wife and I did mix some compost in with the backfill when planting them. I’m sure the plants appreciated this. I’ve also sprinkled some basic lawn fertilizer on them, and they seem to be doing just fine with this.

Finally, while it’s not necessary to mow perennial peanut, mowing can help this groundcover grow into a thicker mat. Just be sure to mow high or else you’ll scalp your groundcover. I like to make sure the plants are growing high enough to show off those pretty golden-colored flowers that butterflies love and that my wife and I just adore!