Dymondia margaretae is the plant most Cape Town homeowners should be using between pavers instead of grass strips. It is indigenous to the southern Cape, it survives our dry summers on almost no water once established, it takes light foot traffic, and it stays flat — about 20–30mm high — so it never needs edging or mowing. If you have ever fought a strip of kikuyu creeping over a paved edge every three weeks, this is the fix.
We plant it between pavers on driveways, pathways and pool surrounds across the city, and it is one of the few "design ideas" that actually reduces work rather than adding it. But it is not bulletproof. It fails in deep shade, it fails in permanently wet soil, and it fails if you plant it into builder’s sand and walk on it the same week. Here is the honest version.
What Dymondia actually is
Dymondia margaretae — often called silver carpet — is a low, mat-forming perennial from the Bredasdorp and Agulhas area. The leaves are narrow and grey-green on top with a felted white underside, so the mat reads silver when the south-easter turns the leaves over. It spreads by short runners and taproots down further than you expect, which is exactly why it copes with a Cape Town February.
Two things matter for paving. It is genuinely low, so it never mounds up over a paver edge the way lawn grass does. And it is tough enough to walk on — not lawn-tough, but fine for a garden path or the joints between stepping stones.
Why it beats a grass strip in Cape Town
- Water. Once its roots are down — realistically one full growing season — Dymondia gets through a Cape Town summer on a deep soak every week or two. Kikuyu in the same strip wants water two or three times a week or it browns off.
- No mowing, no edging. A mower cannot fit between pavers anyway, so grass strips get strimmed, which scalps them and throws sand everywhere. Dymondia needs neither.
- It stays where you put it. Kikuyu is a coloniser — it runs under the edge restraint and into the beds. Dymondia spreads slowly and politely.
- It looks like it belongs. Silver-grey against charcoal or clay pavers is a far better match for a Cape garden than emerald green. It sits naturally alongside the restios, ericas and pelargoniums in a fynbos-style Cape Town garden.
- It drains. A planted joint is permeable. On a sloped Plattekloof or Vredehoek driveway, planted strips take some of the winter run-off that would otherwise sheet straight down to your garage door.
Where Dymondia will disappoint you
We would rather talk you out of it than come back to a failed strip. Skip it if:
- The area is in deep shade. Under a dense tree or on the south side of a double-storey wall, Dymondia thins out and goes patchy. It wants full sun to light shade.
- The soil stays wet. Heavy Durbanville clay that holds winter water will rot it. Either raise and drain the planting strip or choose something else.
- It is a high-traffic route. Dymondia tolerates foot traffic; it does not tolerate a family of five plus a dog using the same 400mm strip every day. In those spots we pave the full width and plant the borders instead.
- You want instant cover. At sensible spacing it takes a full season to knit.
- Cars park on it. Wheel strips are the classic request. It works if the car crosses the strip; it does not work if the car sits on the strip all day.
How to design the paving for it
This is where doing paving and planting together pays off. The plant is easy. The joint detail is what decides whether it lives.
Leave a real planting joint. A 40–60mm gap between pavers is enough for Dymondia to root and knit. Anything narrower and you are asking a taprooted plant to live in a crack. For stepping stones and feature strips, 100–150mm gaps look better and establish faster.
Give it soil, not bedding sand. The standard paving build-up — compacted G5 base and a bedding layer — is designed to shed water and resist roots. That is right under the pavers and wrong in the joint. We break the joint through the bedding layer and backfill with a sandy loam and compost mix so there is something for the roots to hold. On the Cape Flats sand, add compost for water retention; on Durbanville clay, add coarse sand for drainage.
Keep the pavers restrained. A planted joint carries no interlock, so the surrounding pavers must be properly restrained at the edges with a concrete haunch or edge restraint. Without it, the paving creeps and your planting strips widen unevenly. That detail is standard on any of our pathway and walkway paving installations.
Set the plants slightly low. Crown level a few millimetres below the paver surface. It protects the growing points from being scuffed and stops the mat from mounding proud of the paving.
Planting and establishment
Dymondia is sold as plugs or small pots. Spacing decides everything: plant tighter and you pay more up front but close the gap in a season; plant wider and you save money but weed the joint for a year while it fills. As a rough guide, plugs at roughly 150mm centres in a narrow joint will knit within a growing season under regular water; at 250mm centres expect closer to two seasons.
Timing matters in a winter-rainfall climate. Autumn is the best planting window — April to early June. The plants go in ahead of the winter rain, root through the wet months and face their first summer with a real root system. Plant in December and you are committing to hand-watering through the hottest, windiest part of the year.
For the first season, water deeply once or twice a week rather than lightly every day — you want the taproot chasing water downwards. Weed the joints by hand until the mat closes; anything that establishes before the Dymondia does will win. After that first year, most of our clients water planted joints only during long dry spells.
What it costs
Plant costs are small next to the paving, and plug prices move with nursery stock and season, so we would rather quote your actual joint area than publish a number that is out of date by the time you read it.
The paving itself is the real number, and it does not change because you are planting the joints. Bevel and interlock bricks sit around R380–R520 per m² supplied and installed, cement flagstones R420–R580 per m², and clay brick pavers R550–R750 per m². The full breakdown is in our Cape Town paving prices guide.
| Option | Water demand | Maintenance | Best use |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dymondia joints | Low once established | Hand-weed year one, little after | Paths, stepping stones, light-traffic strips |
| Kikuyu / lawn strips | High through summer | Strimming and edging every 2–3 weeks | Rarely worth it between pavers |
| Gravel or stone joints | None | Top up, weed, sweep back | Very hot, very dry or shaded spots |
| Sand-filled joints | None | Re-sand annually | Driveways carrying real vehicle load |
Where it looks best
Our favourite use is a run of large-format slabs through a side passage with Dymondia in wide joints — it turns dead space into something worth walking through. It also works beautifully as a border strip along a driveway edge, softening the line between paving and bed without the maintenance of a lawn ribbon.
Around pools it is a mixed bag: it handles the sun, but chlorinated splash-out is hard on it, so we keep it outside the splash zone. Our comparison of artificial grass versus a real lawn in Cape Town covers the same trade-offs from the other direction.
Doing the paving and the planting as one job is the difference between joints that were designed for plants and joints that were an afterthought. That is the whole argument for handling landscaping and gardening alongside the hard surfaces.
Quick answers
Can you walk on Dymondia between pavers?
Yes — light to moderate foot traffic is fine once it is established. It will not survive a daily high-traffic route or a car parked on it, so keep it to paths, stepping-stone joints and border strips.
How long does Dymondia take to fill in?
Roughly one growing season at close spacing with regular water, or up to two seasons if planted further apart. Autumn planting, ahead of the Cape winter rain, gives the fastest establishment.
Does Dymondia need watering in a Cape Town summer?
Very little once established — a deep soak every week or two through the dry months is usually enough. In the first summer after planting it needs consistent deep watering to get its taproot down.