The grass is growing again. I’d really like to have clover instead. Clover doesn’t need to be mowed, it’s pretty, and it helps bees.
OTOH, I don’t want to dig up the grass. Will clover ‘choke out’ grass? Can I just spread seeds and let it grow?
All of your questions about clover for lawns here:
Stranger
Clover spreads pretty readily once it gets into a lawn.
To get it started, I’d think it would help to create a whole bunch of spaced drill holes, sow seed, cover with soil and water regularly until the clover is up and growing. If you don’t mind the lack the lack of uniformity (and I don’t), I think it’s a good idea. Bees love the blossoms and it fixes nitrogen (especially white clover), lessening or eliminating the need for fertilization…
There are different kinds of clover. Some of them are low-growing and don’t need much mowing; others will grow quite tall. Different types will be longer-lived in different climates and on different soils.
Clover’s unlikely to replace the grass completely if all you do is interseed it, because nature tends toward mixed-species rather than monocrops. You can encourage the clover as compared to the grass by not using any nitrogen fertilizer; clover fixes its own nitrogen from the air (with the aid of the right kind of bacteria, which you can buy to mix with the seed when planting), but grass can’t do that. As the clover establishes, however, it’ll start producing enough nitrogen to also feed some grass. There are grasses which are also low-growing and don’t need as much mowing.
Clover generally should be surface seeded and watered in, or planted very shallowly. It doesn’t want a lot of soil on top of the seed. If you live where the ground freezes, broadcast it early while the soil’s still frozen or just as it starts to thaw; the freeze/thaw cycle of early spring will work the seed into the soil to the right depth, and there’s generally plenty of surface moisture then to help get it growing.
Does this mean I could go buy clover seed and just throw it on top of the grass? We still have frost in the morning, and I’d like to encourage some clover in the “back 40”.
Does clover help crowd out dandelions? I like the look of dandelion seeds, but I think clover is more beneficial.
I had a cousin once who had an entire lawn of dichondra. Didn’t do anything for the bees, but it sure looked classy and never needed mowing.
You’d need a lot of clover seed and a lawn that isn’t tight-knit to get significant germination. Weedier plants do infiltrate in that fashion eventually.
Nothing crowds out dandelions. Not even asphalt.
Several years ago I thought about having a clover yard when I had my house built, most of the yard was torn up anyways.
2 major reason I didn’t-
Neighbors having their yard sprayed (with associated drift), and basically trying to kill what I am trying to grow.
If I get an infestation of dandelions, creeping charlie, etc… what I am treating it with will also kill the clover.
I did replace areas of my lawn with a commercial mixture of wildflower seed. Looks great. Easy to care for, just mow (mulcher setting/blade) after the first hard frost to “reseed”. I have read the only real downfall is after several years one plant may start to dominate and take over the patch.
If the grass is short enough that the clover seed winds up on the ground, that might work.
If the grass has formed a very heavy established sod, scraping it up some first would be useful. But see the article linked below.
The clover will add itself to the dandelions; you’ll still have some dandelions. Both of them are edible, by the way, as long as you haven’t put poisons on your lawn; though dandelion’s a bitter green, even eaten young. Clover blossoms make nice tea.
A relative lot; but even a very heavy clover seeding isn’t a lot of pounds per acre. It’s usually expensive seed; but for an ordinary sort of lawn area, the cost shouldn’t be too high.
Here’s an article on frost-seeding white clover (which is the kind you want if you want low-growing clover) into existing pastures; I wouldn’t think that a lawn situation would be much different.
That’s probably why people try to get rid of them. If they were rare and hard to grow, there’d be lots of people planting them on purpose.
My front “lawn” is vinca minor. My hope this spring is to get it going in the back yard too, which at the moment has a sprinkling of brambles here that I’ll be yanking up while we’re still allowed to burn without a permit, and there and some truly unlovely grass.
I’ve got the seeds now (and could dig up some mature plants from the front yard need be) and will get a tiller before the snow’s gone, so ::fingers crossed::
Aren’t brambles blackberries? Let your brambles take over your entire yard and then you’ll have all the blackberries you can eat. High in Vitamin C! Shoulder-length leather gloves recommended.
Blackberries are brambles, but not all brambles are blackberries. That’s kind of a nitpick, though, because IME the others also have edible fruit – raspberries and some less common variations. But some particular patches have better fruit than others.
Blackberries: Kudzu of the North. I hate them.
It sounds like I can just cut the grass very short and scatter clover seeds. It doesn’t sound like the clover will crowd out the grass (so I’ll still have to mow), but at least I’ll have clover.
I have no experience with them, but there are low-growing raspberries that can be used as ground cover.
It’s not fruitful, but another ground cover one could conceivably substitute for grass, especially in a partially shady spot is variegated bishopweed. It’s on the short list of plants that could survive nuclear holocaust.
They mostly do not grow fruit, and the little fruit they do produce is hard and bitter. 0/10 do not recommend.
Huh, all the wild blackberries I’ve sampled, including our present patch, are sweet and tasty when ripe.
I wouldn’t want them as a lawn substitute though.
I have wild blackcaps (black raspberries) scattered all over the place. Most of them are delicious; but there’s one patch I’ve learned not to bother picking, because the berries are dry and tasteless.
Brambles spread by two methods: by seed and by suckers (shoots spreading out from an existing plant, either from the existing root system or for many brambles by tips of canes drooping down to the ground and rooting themselves where they touch.) The plants that spread from suckers are all clones of the original parent, and will have similar characteristics. The ones that sprout from seed (often transported by whatever ate the berry) are the result of sexual reproduction, and can vary quite a bit. So you can easily get a patch either with unusually large/sweet/well flavored berries, or with unusually small/dry/flavorless berries.
Size and dryness are also a matter of water availability, though – if the weather’s too dry during ripening, even the best patches can produce tiny dried-up berries. But the poor ones will be like that even in favorable weather.
Many nursery ground covers including periwinkle are considered invasive, as they crowd out native species that support pollinators.
There is a patch of wild ginger in my yard that is succumbing to the invasive periwinkle. It’s a tough battle to keep it at bay as it creeps over from next door.
Dad wanted to raise bees so he planted our 1 acre back yard with clover. For most of my young life we had the lush PacNW lawn with about even proportions of clover and buttercup. No idea how the buttercup got established, but all in all it was a fine combination.
Goats are good at blackberry management.