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Clover Lawn?

18 years ago

I'm so confused. In my 25 years of home ownership, one of the 'lawn goals' (as set forth by the 'lawn experts'!)was to remove clover. Several years ago we were struggling to get that traditional northern weed free lawn, gave up trying on our own and hired one of the big guns aka Chemlawn. Many weeds were eradicated. We switched to Scotts Lawn service with 4 treatmens per season but even that bothers me - I hate the chemicals.

Now I'm reading clover is desirable in a lawn? As a lawn by itself? Truth or propaganda? Can I just stop the lawn service and allow nature to take it's course to reintroduce the clover or do I take a more proactive role?

I'm interested to hear experience with this, especially from anyone in a climate similar to mine. Pros cons opinions and suggestions welcome.

Thanks so much - Deb

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Comments (2)

joepyeweed
18 years ago
Prior to the development of broadleaf herbicides, a premium lawn mixture contained clover.

Once broadleaf selective herbicides were available to target other weeds, clover was selected out too.

If you are using weed and feed type products then you won't have clover in the lawn; or if you do, it tends to be clumpy and can degrade from a uniform turf appearance.

The key to co-existing with clover is having it distributed evenly throughout the lawn so you don't have visible clumping.

Clover has advantages and disadvantages in the lawn. Clover fixes nitrogen in the soil, is shade tolerant, drought tolerant and doesn't grow very tall. Clover attracts bees and can cause grass stains on clothing.
gardeniack_flowingdesigns_us
16 years ago
I have a clover lawn and love it. It does fix nitrogen in the soil, is drought, shade, and pest tolerant, can thrive in the triple digit summers we have, doesn't turn yellow with dog potty spots (that is a big one) and stays green in summer and winter. Yes it attracks bees if you let it flower but if you keep it trimmed there are very few flowers that would make a difference considering our yard is full of flower beds that the bees are in anyways. It takes a little while for the clover to croud out most of the weeds and grasses but we do put some grass seed down periodically because the clover seems to thrive more with cometition. As far as grass stains, as kids we always had grass stains so no biggy for me. Again I love it and know it is not for everyone but it is really beautiful and such a viberant green.
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I think the idea that the plant draws nitrogen out of the air might be misleading, our air is about 75% nitrogen. It can be said that humans draw nitrogen out of the air. The problem with a clover lawn is that when you do get weeds such as other broad leafs, there is nothing you can use to kill the weeds that will not kill the clover. This is where lawns come in as a better cover, there are many herbicides that will not hurt a lawn but get the weeds. Why not round up a 1000' sq area of your lawn, separate it from your lawn with timbers and plant clover as a testing area. Make sure you like it and can maintain it.
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I considered clover as a cover crop in the spring until I could plant grass in the fall and even bought the clover seeds. But then I decided against it. The clover would be filled with bees and my grandchildren might be stung. Their clothes would have more grass stains if they rolled around. As for the bulbs, I doubt the clover would hide the dying bulb foliage. You'd probably want to cut the clover so when you cut the clover, you'd be cutting the bulb foliage. If you don't cut the clover, it could grow to 8 inches. I guess that would be okay but I like to see what I'm stepping on and 8 inches would be too high for me to be comfortable. The bulbs would look better in clusters in planting beds rather than willy nilly out in the lawn. You could plant some perennial beds with bulbs so that emerging perennials hide the dying bulb foliage. The beds would be focal points and there would be some pleasing contrasts between the lawn and the beds.
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Following. No recommendations. I am interested in the same. My grass died !
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I'm not sure violets would grow everywhere in a yard. I got a lot of them in some of the shadier areas of my lawn, but not so much in the open sun areas. Other stuff grows better in the sunny areas. But like gardengal, I got all sorts of stuff growing all over in my lawn as well as grass. I try to encourage them, or wait if I can to give them some seed time. I have some swaths of wild chives that I love to let grow- I get a good early spring crop of them for processing into a few things,. They have a nice flush above everything else starts growing up, so makes picking them clean easy. Every year the swaths grow a bit more. I wish I knew an easy way of sowing in a bunch of little crocus bulbs. I'd do in a bunch in the very front yard down by the road.
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