Lawns vs. ground-cover plants

Good letter in the Post today correcting a Close to Home piece from last week that implied that ivy, pachysandra and periwinkle were good native ground covers. Not so. I have to confess to using some periwinkle on my tiny townhouse front yard, but I've also had success with a true native -- sedum ternatum, a.k.a. woodland stonecrop.

See the 'Landscaping' section of GreenListDC.org for links to the Maryland Native Plant Society and its DC chapeter, as well as to the Virginia Native Plant Society. Their web sites have lists of plants native to those areas.