Clover lawns

[spirit1]

I was on a local online site and a guy in the next neighborhood who always has good advice was talking about his clover lawn. He planted it a year and a half ago and really loves it in his back yard where it is very sunny. It is growing a lot slower on the shady side of his yard.

However, he thinks the better qualities outweigh the bad. He posted a video and I have to admit it looks a lot nicer than I thought it would.
With all the drought and people aging in place I was wondering if anyone has a clover lawn and what they think about it.
On a side note...apparently clover in lawns was quite common until the 1950's and lawn seed actually had clover seed mixed in. Clover is a legume and works to fertilize the lawns at the same time. But herbicide companies figured out they could sell more herbicide if they got rid of the clover!!!!

The following article gives some good advice for growing a clover lawn and also some of the cons to be aware of.

Clover Lawns Pros and Cons (why you might want clover) - Lawn Chick

Learn about the advantages and disadvantages of clover lawns. I discuss clover lawns pros and cons and why you might want to consider clover.

lawnchick.com

Anyone have a clover lawn? Would love to hear about your experiences.

 

[easyrider]

You must be thinking of replanting ?

This spring I was bored so I redid our back yard and since I had the Bobcat here, my son next door did a redo too. He planted micro clover in their back yard because his daughter has a grass allergy. It looks nice and doesn't seem to require to much mowing so far. He mowed it about a month after planting it and maybe once or twice since then. Like any ground cover it needed alot of water to get it going and for the micro clover he used a thin layer of peat moss and soil to retain moisture, embed the seeds and hide the seeds from the birds. I haven't seen any white flowers in the micro clover yet. It's just green leafy thick ground cover so far. The process was to spray the lawn with Round Up then use the Bobcat to remove the dead sod and flatten the soil. There was a fertilizer used before sowing the seeds and the clover is thick enough to choke out weeds.

I'm a fan of rye grass and planted it in the back yard a couple of weeks ago. I used the Bobcat to cover the dryed out sod with about 6 inches of dirt removed from the back hill and seeded the area with nothing covering the seeds. I do have alot of weeds coming in but they will die in late fall or I can spay 2-4-D next spring. 2-4-D would kill clover. Rye grass is just the easiest grass to maintain in our zone, imo.

Bill

 

[CO skier]

The clover took over our north facing backyard, and I could not be happier with the results. Half shade, half full sun due to the two-story shadow from the house. Rich, deep green color; mow it once every ten days, but could be once a month. Love my clover lawn.

My sister saw the results, and wanted the same for her front yard. Installed a 60-foot "mowing strip" on the property line of her neighbors, because clover is highly invasive (good thing, if you want to keep weeds out, bad if you want a grass lawn like her neighbors). The 10-inch deep, exposed aggregate concrete "mowing strip" looks really good and is working well as a plant "demilitarized zone" between the neighbors' grass lawns and the clover lawn.

 

[gln60]

The problem I have with clover in a grass lawn are the little white flowers that appear….I prefer a nicely manicured green lawn.

 

[am1]

I saw a few in the 90s when I was a kid and they attract more bees. This was a concern.

 

[spirit1]

The clover took over our north facing backyard, and I could not be happier with the results. Half shade, half full sun due to the two-story shadow from the house. Rich, deep green color; mow it once every ten days, but could be once a month. Love my clover lawn.

My sister saw the results, and wanted the same for her front yard. Installed a 60-foot "mowing strip" on the property line of her neighbors, because clover is highly invasive (good thing, if you want to keep weeds out, bad if you want a grass lawn like her neighbors). The 10-inch deep, exposed aggregate concrete "mowing strip" looks really good and is working well as a plant "demilitarized zone" between the neighbors' grass lawns and the clover lawn.

The exposed aggregate strip is a great idea. We have a very large front yard (city easement) and both neighbors are really strong "We like a beautiful lawn" types. The mowing strip would be a great idea. Just one question. What do you mean when you say 60 foot? Surely not 60 feet wide? Anyway, something to think about. Thanks.

 

[Ralph Sir Edward]

It sounds nice, but can it stand up to Texas heat?

 

["Roger"]

I grew up in the '50's when clover seed was regularly added to lawn seed. As mentioned, clover would fixate nitrogin in the soil in the poorest parts of the lawn. When the nitrogin levels would inclrease, grass would begin to take over that part of the lawn and the clover would move on to areas where the grass had consumed most of the nitrogin and was in need of a fix. Not much need for adding tons of fertilizer. Just let the natural cycle do its work. There was an added benefit with the clover in that it was more drought resistent and those parts of the lawn would stay green longer during dry periods.

What changed? When dandelion killers came out, they would not only surpress and (hopefully) kill the dandelions, but would kill most broad leaf plants including clover. Suddenly, clover was declared to be a "weed."

While labor intensive, I used to (have moved into a senior living center), go around and spray the individual dandelion plants with weed killer. It took about an hour and a half to cover my one acre lawn. Not only did I pretty much rid my lawn of the dandelions, but birds and bees which regularly suffer ill effects from eating where weed killer has been sprayed benefited from lesser exposure. (Check the net on that and you will find many sites discussing the ill effects of weed killers on birds.)

 

[easyrider]

While labor intensive, I used to (have moved into a senior living center), go around and spray the individual dandelion plants with weed killer. It took about an hour and a half to cover my one acre lawn.

We have a lot that I used for materials and equipment. It's a bit over an acre of lawn now. I was using a 30 gallon sprayer to kill lawn weeds but in the last 7 years I just let whatever wants to grow grow. I still spray the perimeter using a 1 gallon sprayer for goat heads. The last few springs there were so many dandy lions that the east side of the lot looked yellow. There is a patch of clover in the middle section. I planted the rye grass to choke out weeds. I can actually see the day that this lot will be someone else's job. Do you miss the mowing at all Roger ? Oddly, I think I might.

Bill

 

[chapjim]

White clover flowers attract honey bees. Walking barefoot can be painful.

 

[CO skier]

The exposed aggregate strip is a great idea. We have a very large front yard (city easement) and both neighbors are really strong "We like a beautiful lawn" types. The mowing strip would be a great idea. Just one question. What do you mean when you say 60 foot? Surely not 60 feet wide? Anyway, something to think about. Thanks.

The mowing strip was a completely straight line four inches wide, 6 inches deep (concrete), and 60 ft. long running right down our side of the shared property line. Imagine this (linked) except 4 inches wide instead of 30 inches wide.

Dug the trench 10 inches deep by 4-ish inches wide using a pulaski. Bottom four inches filled with 1" stone chips and tamped down using a large sledge hammer. Top four inches lined with plastic lawn edging and held in place using wooden stakes. Mixed the 28 bags of concrete by hand (shovel) two bags at a time in a wheelbarrow using 1 fl. oz. of concrete colorant per bag. The colorant was premixed with some water, then added to the Quickcrete. Did not bother with tool edging the concrete because it is bordering grass on both sides. Had a helper scatter the pea gravel and minus 1-inch stone chips in a eye-pleasing pattern over the concrete, then using a little water at a time and a trowel to "cream" the cement completely over the aggregate. Did not use any "retarder". Gently rinsed and brushed after 40 minutes to achieve the desired exposed aggregate look. It took about the first 8 feet to get a hang for the rythm and timing. So, I learned to start at the end that will be the least seen. At about 20 feet, I felt like a pro.

The concrete pour took much longer than estimated - about 16 hours over two days. Cool, cloudy day is definitely better than full sun all day for a project like this. Total cost was about $5/linear foot. Picked up the 1" stone chips in bulk from a garden supply, which saved a significant amount versus bagged stone chips. Tip: It probably would have been worth the $80 for a one-day rental of an electric cement mixer; probably could have completed the pour in only 7-8 hours. After a couple days, it was fairly easy to pull the platic edging up and out. I have to say for a first time, amateur job, it looked really cool.

Some good instructions begin at about the 5 minute mark in this video:

 

[CO skier]

It sounds nice, but can it stand up to Texas heat?

The internet is a wonderful thing.

Whimsical, Yes. But Is This TikTok Grass Alternative Suited for Texas Lawns?

Clover lawns are trending as an environmentally friendly alternative to grass. The benefits are real, but one Texas expert says that’s not the point. Here's how they hold up in the state.

www.texasmonthly.com

 

[CO skier]

Clover and grass lawn where I am staying at the moment. Bees are rare. Kids running around from time to time without any issues. This area is not irrigated, as far as I can tell; have not seen any sprinklers run. It was mowed once in the two weeks I have been here.

 

[CO skier]

dandy lions

 

[moonstone]

When we built our current house in the country we decided to plant a clover and short wildflower lawn. It is over a 1 acre lot and DH thought that would save him some grass cutting. It looked pretty when everything was flowering but as mentioned the bees love it! The other problem that I found out later is that clover stains clothes (we had 3 kids under 5 when we planted) worse than grass. The kids all had permanently stained knees and bums of most of their pants. After a few years grass started to grow and some of the wildflowers died off so now we mostly have grass and clover with a few wildflowers and lots of weeds, but hey, it's all green!

~Diane

 

[easyrider]

When we built our current house in the country we decided to plant a clover and short wildflower lawn. It is over a 1 acre lot and DH thought that would save him some grass cutting. It looked pretty when everything was flowering but as mentioned the bees love it! The other problem that I found out later is that clover stains clothes (we had 3 kids under 5 when we planted) worse than grass. The kids all had permanently stained knees and bums of most of their pants. After a few years grass started to grow and some of the wildflowers died off so now we mostly have grass and clover with a few wildflowers and lots of weeds, but hey, it's all green!

~Diane

One of my landscaper friends talked me into hydo-seeding a wild flower sheep grass mix on the hill behind the house 30 years ago. The wild flower mix was interesting for years but the sheep grass is the only thing that didn't need much watering so it took over. I had planted low growing junipers and arbs on top of the hill. The junipers took over the hill and did really well but some of them were not low growing and after 30 years it's interesting. I had the same juniper problem on the hill in front of the house. My wife complained that the junipers were taking over the stairs to the road so I started cutting the junipers back. I kind of over did it and now have a new project. Some of the junipers are tree like and I'm just trimming those. They resemble a bonsai tree when I finish trimming is what people are telling me. This project might go into next spring because I have other projects that need attention and trips planned.

I did notice my grand-kids with green knees from the clover. They play in the clover. So one more con for clover, lol.

Bill

 

[stmartinfan]

A guy in our neighborhood is gradually turning his yard into a pollinator friendly space and one of his steps is letting the clover take over as much as it can in his yard. He doesn't treat his yard with any herbicides but does hand pull dandelions. He's created a flower bed of native flowers in the front yard and put small houses for carpenter bees (I think that's the variety) on the outside garage wall. He has several fruit trees in the back and likes the pollinators for those. No kids so he doesn't worry about bees, but says the varieties of bees aren't really aggressive.

 

[TheHolleys87]

Well, thanks to this discussion I now understand why there wasn’t any clover for my grandkids to put in their baskets for the Easter Bunny, like we did in the 50s. Sigh.

 

[WinniWoman]

My father always told me clover was good for lawns and where we used to live in the woods we really didn’t care what was in the “ lawn” as long as it was green and we could mow it. Lol!

Here where we live people pull it out like it’s a weed. I couldn’t believe it.

 

[CO skier]

The exposed aggregate strip is a great idea. We have a very large front yard (city easement) and both neighbors are really strong "We like a beautiful lawn" types. The mowing strip would be a great idea. Just one question. What do you mean when you say 60 foot? Surely not 60 feet wide? Anyway, something to think about. Thanks.

I asked my sister to send a picture of the exposed aggregate concrete mow strip. I happened to have a 1976 Bicentennial half-dollar with me at the time (won in a poker game in the early 80's; they are not easy to spend ); mounted within the first four inches of the project's sidewalk end to add some flair and good luck. It is easy to see how just four inches demarcation will keep the clover-to-be lawn contained on the right, and the grass lawn contained to the left.

Waaaay more interesting and decorative than the bland, gray concrete mow strips that have become such a landscape cliché. If I am going to take the time to build something, it might as well be something unique in the universe, even if it is just a humble mow strip.