I think the clover might indeed choke out your perennials after awhile if you don't keep it in check. I can understand why you like it though. I love clover (white early clover) in the lawn. It looks nice and doesn't need as much water as real grass, and even remains perky and green during the hot summer months! However, if I see it popping up in the gardens I pull it. I know it would get out of control in my flower beds!

It all depends on how much work you are willing to put into keeping the clover in check. If you don't mind pulling every month or two go ahead and clear the clover away from around each plant as you had planned. If it were me, I would go ahead and take it all out and save myself all that work. But again, that is just me ;-)

You could also treat your clover as more of a 'cover crop' than a perennial groundcover. Many people do cover crops in their veggie gardens to add nitrogen and other nutrients into the soil. They plant seed of the clover (or other) in fall and let it grow on until the spring when they cut back and till the clover into the soil. It adds all the nutrients but is pretty much gone when planting time comes around.

Hope that helped a little, though I rather doubt it, LOL!

Ps. Your home is lovely ;-)
CMK

Here is a link that might be useful: How to use clover as a cover crop

Thanks very much, CMK.

As I am basically blundering through new territory, your counsel does help. I will try to keep the clover in check as my non-woody perennials show themselves, then figure out how to mostly transition from it permanently. I just helps to know that even this strategy is not fraught with some terrible disaster.

Thanks also for liking the house.
{{gwi:645231}}
This is what I bought in 2009. I am so unhandy that virtually everything hands-on in the renovation had to be done by others; I am just trying to give this old Sears kit house the small front garden it deserves by playing in the dirt. Let's hope the third time is a charm.

Cheers. hbk

Wow, what a change. It hardly looks like the same house! I think there are some Sears houses here in Alexandria too. Love them. I agree that you could mow the clover to give the perennials a chance to get going.

is it clover or oxalis? Look up oxalis, it's quite a thug, and looks just like clover.

I also planted clover in my front beds when they were new and lonely looking, but I ended up removing it all in the long run. It's so hard to control and kept trying to take over. If I were you, I'd probably just get rid of it all, even though it seems sad to pull out something so lush. I do love clover and I still have it all over my lawn, but where I'm trying to grow perennials or veggies, it's just too much!

I do wonder if that is oxalis which is terribly invasive. I have clover but it creeps rather than take over in that way. In anycase, if you want to control a rapidly invasive thug, the only way is a drastic way.

What I think in retrospect may be oxalis is a small-leafed "clover" with tiny petaled yellow flowers. I kept pulling it out all last year, along with the crab crass and other pesky creatures, because it did not have the mounding habit of the clover. It basically flopped around on long branched stems.

What is left is large-leaf clover with spherical white flowers and a similar thing with rosy flowers.

The first time we get a decent rain, I am going to use a sharp tool to dig up the clover that most threatens the perennials and move it to the tree lawn, only half of which I got properly into clover last year.

Thanks so much to all. hbk

PS. cyn427, I am sure that there are Sears kits in Alexandria. There are quite a few in Arlington. Basically, they sprang up in neighborhoods near railway stops, where the two boxcars-worth of house parts could be unloaded. In DC, there are many in Brookland and a scattering in Chevy Chase and Palisades. Infamously, a pretty large one was was demolished on Sherrier Place, in Palisades, a few years ago. Google Earth shows nothing built on the lot.

Here is a link that might be useful: Sears kit house torn down in Palisades

hbk, Thanks for the link. I had heard about the tearing down of that house. So sad. You really have done a wonderful job with yours! I am always glad to see old places brought back to life!