I wouldn’t mind, but I’d hope the neighbor takes steps to ensure the clover doesn’t creep into the other yards when there’s no break between one yard and the other. If one has clover and the other has grass, the clover is likely to creep into the grass lawn. That other neighbor would likely be upset with having to deal with trying to keep the clover out. The same goes for planting different kinds of grasses next to each other, like Bermuda and St. Augustine. And also for ground cover plants. If it starts to cross into the neighbor’s yard, then that’s a legitimate issue that the neighbor can complain about.
Another issue is whether they keep the yard well maintained. Sometimes I see neighbors convert their lawn to native or low maintenance landscaping, but then they end up treating it as no maintenance. They let the leaves pile up and the weeds sprout up. If someone was converting to a clover lawn in a traditional grass neighborhood, they could avoid a lot of ill feelings by ensuring they kept their yard looking good so the neighbors have less to complain about.
Am I correct that clover generates those little white flowers? Do people with clover lawns mow those flowers, or allow them to germinate? Just curious.
To answer the question, I don’t care. Even if we had front lawns on my block (mostly we don’t, because of tiny lot size) I wouldn’t care. Our next door neighbor replaced a tiny ragged grass lawn with, unfortunately, cheap artificial turf, cheaply installed. Now weeds (dandelions mostly, I think, or remnants of grass) are growing out the edges and overwhelming the tiny strip of garden next to the house, and they have abandoned all attempts to control them. Some of those weeds hang over our walkway. THAT I don’t like.
Our front postage stamp was concreted over when we moved here. I have considered knocking that out in favor of either permeable pavers or native plants, but I’m at an age now where yard work is pretty much out of the question. And I certainly don’t want to deal with weeds coming from next door (we get enough of that in the back yard).
I wouldn’t mind but my HOA would. I am in central TX in a new construction area. The city requires a turf grass lawn and then due to the drought doesn’t allow us to water it. I think just leaving the yard alone and whatever grows grows.
A neighbor’s grass lawn would upset me. Grass lawns are called green asphalt these biodiversity loss days for a reason, except that asphalt doesn’t take water and power cutting to maintain.
I had not heard of “miniature”, or more correctly speaking, microclover in or as lawns before. It seems like a good alternative to turfgrass, though maybe not as a monoculture in some settings.
It would be fine with me if neighbors used it. Our own lawn areas have lots of regular clover, wild violet and other non-grass elements and look fine to me without any feeding or herbicide application, though a turf aficionado undoubtedly would be appalled.
The previous owners of my house used to overseed the lawn with annual clover seed every year to replenish the soil. I had the nicest lawn on the block!
I haven’t kept up the overseeding, but I don’t water the yard, either. Moss pretty much fills in wherever it can.
I’m an organic lawn guy and I’ve been recommending to our customers incorporating clover into lawns for going on 12 years now. It’s adds nitrogen to the soil, which means less need for fertilizer, it makes turf more drought tolerant, it thickens turf to keep other noxious weeds out, and it helps keep grubs from taking over. My lawn is probably 30-40% clover.
That being said, lawns that are 100% clover never look as good as lawn with clover just incorporated. It’s a better sidekick than star.
Microclover is also more expensive than regular Dutch white, and microclover tends to grow into full-sized clover over time, especially if you don’t keep it mowed. Would I care if my neighbor created a full microclover lawn? No, but I’d probably offer the same info I gave here.
Just my 2 cents to the thread. More info on the benefits of clover: CloverIsNotAWeed.com
I’m slowly converting my front lawn, which seems to have been placed under a curse, to clover. One one side, the lawn runs right into my neighbor’s lawn, which is her pride and joy. She’s actually excited to see how mine turns out, because, hey, it’s green, which is better than it has been. And if there’s a little encroachment from my lawn to her strip on this side of her driveway, she’s cool with it.
Clover’s great. I’m in. my lawn is whatever grows naturally with regular mowing, so a TON of dandelions, which I love. I’ve also got a 10 acre field devoted to wildflowers and shrubs and especially milkweed. Front lawn is beach/dune vegetation
We’re in Ohio, on 15 acres. I mow about 5 acres of it. I don’t treat it. It’s a mixture of grass, clover, dandelions, weeds… whatever. All natural.
“Neighbor” has a different definition around here. Our closest neighbor can’t be seen from our house. And she couldn’t care less what I do, and vice-versa.
Yep. my lawn has 4 or so different types of clover (I have seeded with clover a couple times) several different types of grasses, Dandelions (they are so cheerful) and a couple other so-called “weeds”. My lawn is nice and green, uses less water, less mowing, less (in fact none for the last several years) fertilizer, and NO herbicides. The birds and other wildlife love it also. Monoculture lawns are bad for the environment.
As another person who hates the bland suburbia landscape of endless carpets of grass, I applaud the OP. We killed or removed all of the grass in our yard in Portland, including the back and side yards. On one side in front we planted flowering ground cover and on the other were perennials, including tulips and peonies and shrubs. When the last bit of grass was rolled up, I gave the gardening service my electric mower.
I keep my front in well-groomed zoysia, since the neighborhood would look weedy and untidy if everybody kept clover in front. But I keep the back in white clover since I keep bees. There’s a time and a place for everything.
Let me just say it warms this old organic lawn guy’s heart to see you all embracing biodiverse lawns. I do a dozen workshops a year and have hundreds of one-on-one conversations a year trying to convince people this is the healthy and ideal way to manage their lawns. So many people are just convinced that anything less than a perfect monoculture is absolute failure.
We do community events where we give Dutch white clover seed away for free and probably 6 in 10 people look at us like we’re freaking nuts.
I would rather have a neighbor with a yard full of clover than a yard full of dandelions.
Actually my wife tried to add clover to some bare spots in our yard a couple years ago, but it died out when it got hot. So it was probably the microclover mentioned above.