I had no front lawn to speak of for years because I was digging out bindweed since 2020. Actually let, me back up. Northern Colorado with heavy clay soil. No one around has a great lawn except a few with Kentucky bluegrass that water all of the time. I want a water-friendly if not xeriscaped yard so I used creeping red fescue along with microclover. Along the border of the flower garden, I put in Dutch white clover. I have been over seeding for 1.5 years now and here is the outcome. The fescue is patchy and despite seeding there are sections that do not fill in. It is very susceptible to heat and gets brown once the temps get into the 70s. The microclover is not really growing. Note: I have another area with different slender fescue and microclover and there I have the same issue and no microclover grew so it is not about where specifically I planted it or sun vs shade. And now the weeds. The grass and microclover are doing nothing to control weed growth. There is a huge variety of weeds and they come in great numbers.
BUT the DWC has spread. It is lush and it is green. I weedwacked it to top off the flowers and it bounced right back. It has spread beautifully into the yard and not into the flower garden and where it is growing, nary a weed in sight. The front yard is very small and more for looks, so this fall, I am rototilling the grass area and planting a clover lawn.
Go with what nature is telling you about what will grow and flourish there.
As Gerard Manley Hopkins put it What would the world be, once bereft Of wet and of wildness? Let them be left, O let them be left, wildness and wet; Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet.
Might I recommend once the DWC has taken over a bit, try overseeding with grass seed every year or so. The clover will deposit nitrogen into the soil, and you may be pleasantly surprised to see grass do better once the clover has established a bit.
In my experience, clover makes a great sidekick to grass, but doesn’t always make a great leading man.
Also, try top-dressing with some compost. 99% (not a scientifically-proven number) of problems with grass not growing is a lack of organic matter in the soil. It loosens up clay and binds sand, plus helps lock in nutrients.
-Happy, certified lawn manager
ETA: Good for you for embracing the clover! My organic lawn company launched a non-profit last year, with a goal of educating around the benefits of clover and working to destigmatize it. It really is an amazing little groundcover. More on some of the benefits: CloverIsNotAWeed.com
Could be. I’m not a huge fan of microclover personally. It’s more expensive than regular ol’ DWC and over time it typically grows into regular-sized clover (so you might as well just buy the cheaper regular-sized stuff right off the bat). Maybe it doesn’t deposit as much nitrogen into the soil as regular DWC (although I can’t back this up with any facts, just guessing).
Have you thought about buffalo grass? It is a Great Plains native, so should withstand your cold winters, and I know it does fine in compacted clay soil in West Texas.
Curly mesquite grass is also good for hard clay soils, is more drought tolerant, and is more attractive IMO, than buffalo grass.
Glad it’s working out for you. I think I’ll have to add a bunch of lime to clover seed and try again. The patches of clover I had already are doing great, getting them to spread and take root on the rest of the lawn hasn’t worked out so far.
I did look at it and I can’t remember why I dismissed it. Maybe it doesn’t spread like red fescue is supposed to? I am also looking at sedges like carex glauca. Any thoughts on leaving the red fescue, throwing on some buffalo grass seed and some sedge plugs this fall and seeing which one wins? I don’t think a lawn with multiple grasses and clover looks bad as long as it’s all reasonable spread out.
I have just a tiny patch of grass (Albuquerque, and it’s sandy soil), and the buffalo grass I planted from seed in 2020 is just now starting to assert itself. There are other grasses and weeds interspersed, but after 4 years of pulling the nasty ones and leaving anything that looks okay once I mow it, the patch is mostly buffalo. I think it struggled because it doesn’t start growing until it’s firmly convinced that the last freeze is over, and there are a lot of weeds that pop up earlier.
Someone in the very distant past planted bermuda grass, and it bounced back and started growing again under an adjacent tree once I began watering, but the buffalo grass seems able to push back and keep it from growing in the full-sun space.
I’m not sure how this would translate to a clay soil environment, but in my yard, buffalo grass thrives in full sun, but it takes a while to get established, especially when it has to compete against weeds that emerge earlier in the spring.
How did you get rid of the bindweed? I’ve been fighting it for years, and it seems to be winning.
Last year and this year I’ve been spraying dicamba, because at least that doesn’t kill the grass, but it takes years of treatment to eliminate bindweed. The mighty glyphosate will kill a bindweed runner, and everything else. The bare patch is then recolonized from the mothership.
For those who don’t know about bindweed, you probably need a Facebook account to see the picture, but here is a botanist holding a bindweed tuber. It looks like a four foot tall turnip that can be 20 feet underground. The plant can grow back from the tuber, roots, cuttings, or from seeds that can be dormant for decades. It is extremely fast growing and will climb on desirable plants, and pull water and nutrients out of the soil.
After the first 2-3 years in Portland, we had all of the grass taken out (I gave my mower to the crew that did it) and planted flowers and shrubs that like that growing zone. Highly recommended. Grass is a weed and a PITA to maintain.
In the comments of that Facebook post, someone pointed out that bindweed has rhizome type roots, not tubers, and questioned whether the giant tuber photo was a joke. The illustration on the University of California Agriculture & Natural Resources page linked below does not include anything like a giant tuber. Hmmm…
Advantages of buffalograss include low maintenance/low water needs once established. It does go brown during dormancy, triggered by the first hard frost, and turns green later than bluegrass lawns in spring, which turns off some people.
I’ve considered Zoysia. Sounds like Buffalograss is similar.
A while back there was a test market of some grass that sort of grew upside down, putting down long roots and bladed that didn’t grow very high above the ground. IIRC the seeds were infected with some kind mold or something to make them grow that way. Saw a commercial on TV and some report online, then never heard of it again. Maybe there was a thread here on the Dope too.
What is wrong with a clover lawn? It doesnt require fertilizers or herbicides/weedkillers (many of which will kill it). It is - as you say- lush and green.
Now what I have done is spread clover seeds, etc and now my lawn has many varieties of grass, clover, dandelions, plantain, etc. And it needs less watering, no fertilising and no weedkiller. It is lush, green, and nice to walk on.