A great little evergreen plant, New Zealand brass buttons (Cotula or Leptinella squalida), that only grows about an inch (2.5cm) high, and spreads about 18in (45cm) to create a mat of green leaves that become bronzed in winter.

See a close-up of Cotula squalida

This is a great alternative to grass (no mowing!) in a place where it isn't walked on that much, other than to access the flower beds for a spot of weeding.

It likes the semi-shady spot in our garden, and looks good most of the time, but does sulk during a heat wave.

We propagated it by digging up some clumps from another part of the garden and splitting these up to plant over the whole area, then covering it with garden fleece until rooted. This was to stop the young blackbirds pulling out the stems, which they mistake for worms.

In the beginning it also needed a fair bit of hand weeding to remove opportunist growth of various things in the bare patches, but now it's knitted together, this is less of a problem, except for creeping speedwell which was in the ground to start with and keeps popping up.

For the saga of our search for an alternative to grass, see our blog.