This whimsical grass substitute is all the rage, drumming up attention on tiktok, youtube, pinterest and instagram. Clover lawns are low maintenance, drought resistant and pollinator friendly. It could be perfect for busy homeowners who just want to keep it green all year. However, since this trend is much newer than more traditional grasses, there’s some things that you need to know before diving in. I did a lot of research before planting mine, but there were still several considerations I missed. Here is what I wish I’d known in advance.
Toxicity: There’s some debate online as to whether clover can be considered pet-friendly, and the conclusion is complicated. Cats are susceptible to extreme illness if they consume high amounts of clover. However, most cat parents who have planted it say their cats have no interest in even trying it, nonetheless shoveling it down at the rate that would make them sick. As a cat parent myself, I always supervise my babies in the garden anyway, but I’ve opted to keep it only in the front where they aren’t allowed. We do have lots of neighborhood cats who stop by, and none of them have shown any interest in eating the clover. Our bigger concern has been the cats picking fights with the angriest of pollinators it attracted. Cats swell massively when they get bee stings if you didn’t know. Overall, I would not recommend clover lawns to cat households that give the kitties free reign in and out without human supervision. Better safe than sorry. As for dog households, clover may actually bring you some advantages. It doesn’t change colors or die when dogs use it for a bathroom break and can tolerate a fair amount of pup traffic. Your biggest issue is going to be finding where to bring your pooper scooper, especially if you choose to go the low mow route. Clovers can get quite tall and tangled very quickly and can also block a lot of smell. It’s up to you if you want to count that as a pro or a con.
Mowing: You will need to mow less often, but most people with clover lawns do still mow them. I thought I was going to be able to just let it grow wild, but since I hadn’t completely mitigated weeds in my lawn before I started, I needed to mow to keep them down. The clover also grew much bigger than I thought. I was imagining the tiny weedy versions I’d seen in well maintained yards and parks growing up. Left un-mowed, even my white micro-clover got quite massive. This has both advantages and disadvantages though. I thought it looked really awesome, and it definitely helped with maintaining moisture in the high-dessert climate I live in. When stepping outside while it was tall and lush, I swear it felt cooler than any other area. If you are looking to get out of mowing altogether, another ground cover option may suit you better.
Climate: Clover can stay green for most of the year, but it does go dormant in winter in regions that get frost and snow. In these cooler climates, clover is considered established once it’s gone through a winter and comes back. What’s awesome about this is that mine came back ten times stronger the next year. I was worried about a lot of bare patches and areas that didn’t grow when I sowed in fall, but the spring brought it in full-force. It did greatly help to leave the leaf mulch over it, by the way. The area my lovely boyfriend tried to rake before I could stop him had much lower establishment than the rest of the yard.
Costs: Starting a clover lawn will have some upfront costs. I had started with a bare lot that grew nothing but tumbleweeds, and we did end up doing some weed mitigation measures and bringing in some fresh soil from a local landscape supplier. I also ended up needing way more seeds than I’d thought. Clover seeds are very small and super invasive, so you use less than you would of grass or many other ground covers. However, I ended up using about twice as much for my front yard as the package recommended and still had a little patchiness. I definitely recommend investing in a spreader as well. I did it by hand the first time and it took about three times as long with half the results of my spring planting with a spreader.
Land management: You are going to have to choose weedkillers and pesticides very carefully, if you use them at all. Most commercial herbicides are designed to kill clover, as it’s been renowned as a weed for a long time. Additionally, it will attract bees and other pollinators to your yard. This may be a bad idea if you’re getting regular pest control visits as many species are endangered and important to the ecosystem; you don’t want to lure them to their deaths. If you don’t have much experience with pollinator-friendly gardening, you should be warned that it doesn’t just mean honey bees. Pollinators are pollinators. Your local wasps, yellow jackets, and even ants will probably love the new ecosystem as well. Many barefoot-walkers complain of getting stung more often on clover than grass. We did have a problem with a wasp colony taking hold, all while no honey bees or bumblebees really stopped by. This definitely made me re-think how I was attracting pollinators and I’m currently doing more research on how to manage them better.
Water: Clover is known best for being drought-resistant and I have found it even helps retain enough moisture to impart that resistance to its grass companion as well. Instructions generally allow water once a week once established, while most grasses need significantly more. In many places you can probably get away with even less, but where I live it gets so hot and arid that we do water 2-3 times a week. Our grass in the other yard needs twice daily water, however, so it’s definitely an improvement. You do have to keep the ground moist for the first two weeks or so after planting, so I definitely recommend waiting for fall or spring when the heat is lower to plant. I find using good old fashioned sprinklers works just fine for this. Of course, you can always water by hand if you have the time and discipline.
Getting started: It’s best to treat your lawn or land with lime before planting clover. You can test your PH first and compare to the label to see if its already palatable to the plant, but it usually isn’t. There are many types of clover. My personal choice is Microclover. This is a white clover that stays fairly small even without mowing (by “fairly small” I mean no more than 6 inches tall, but the leaves get pretty massive). Other types of clover are readily available as cover crops in the agricultural world, and may be fine in your landscape, but they do tend to be taller and need trimming to a height taller than what most standard lawn mowers can do.
I started my clover lawn in the front yard of the barren lot that holds my fixer-upper millennial-priced home in Southern Colorado. We were dealing with a heavy tumbleweed and goat head infestation the spring and summer after I moved in. The usual wisdom is to till and treat soil, then let the weeds grow a bit before taking them down and planting. I definitely had neighbor problems while I went through this process, which held me up and led to an incomplete mitigation. Regardless, I am still so glad I used clover instead of just traditional grass. I’ve had to do a lot less hand-weeding and everywhere I pull weeds out, the clover fills in within a week (sometimes I do add more seed). It’s helped me so much in the process of creating a manageable, weed-free lawn without taking it out on my water bill.
After the clover was established I decided to mix in a little bit of grass seed to cover the areas it was having trouble filling. My biggest complaint about using grass and clover as companions is that you have to mow as often as the grass likes, and I would prefer to let the clover grow its flowers and reseed itself. If you don’t mow grass, it will eventually get tall and brown before it seeds, then dies off leaving only descendents. This is not super friendly on an urban lot or mixed in with other plants. Grass will also need a little more water in the summer, depending on the climate. Always make sure you’re using grass that’s locally adapted, even though your clover likely isn’t, and they should pair together just fine. If you’re lucky enough to have an existing grass lawn already, you can also plant clover right over it. If you do so, you will probably want to add a little bit of soil on top as well (not more than ¼ in). Be advised though that clover can and will overtake the grass entirely over time, and you should use smaller amounts if you do want the grass to stay. Clover seeds are tiny and incredibly prolific, so you usually need to mix them with sand, topsoil or grass seed for planting.
Overall, I think clover makes an awesome ground cover in the suburbs, and I plan to keep it for many years to come. Once I get a larger property to homestead on, I will probably also keep it in the recreational areas there. It’s absolutely lovely to be in the presence of, and in my opinion really cute next to a house. I will say, however, that it’s not a complete fix-all or the most eco-friendly option. It definitely has as many drawbacks as benefits and is still invasive in the United States. It won’t magically return your lot to some pre-industrial dreamland. It will, however, stay green in hot summers without as much water and maintenance, help keep weeds crowded out, and maintain a very healthy soil. I think that’s plenty to ask of a groundcover, and I do hope to see clover lawns get more popular especially in desert states like Colorado, Arizona, California and New Mexico where every drop counts and reducing watering makes a huge impact. If you are going to have a living lawn no matter what, clover is probably the easiest and cheapest grass alternative.
Amethyst Coveland Blog 