I know that clover is good at fixing atmospheric (gaseous) nitrogen and turning it into a more solid form that plants can use (much like nitrogen fertilizers), but I am not smart enough to know if it is particularly drought-resistant
It lives on far less water than grass in my experience.
Depends on the species of grass
Hard Fescue & Sheep fescue have it beat.
Tall fescue is about equal.
Blue grass, fine fescues, and perennial ryegrass require more water.
Buffalo and Blue Gramma grasses are definitely more drought resistant than clover. They don’t grow very tall either, so you can stop mowing toward the end of the season, let them go to seed, and that will naturally fill in any gaps that might have formed due to drought, damage, etc.
Grass isn’t inherently a bad idea for a lawn, it’s just specific to your individual climate. The main issue is that most of the grasses people plant are native to much cooler climates in Europe.
I have a grass lawn, but it’s a native Buffalo grass. It’s much more drought tolerant than clover, flowers a couple times a year, doesn’t require any maintenance, and provides a natural habitat for native wildlife.
Clover isn’t actually much better than most grasses if you are trying to support the natural biodiversity. It’s not native to north America, and thus only supports a small range of wildlife that’s adapted to it.
A Lot of America’s natural ground cover is actually low lying shrubs and flowering plants.
There are several clover species native to NA.
Most are only found in the west, but theres a few eastern ones like Trifolium kentuckiense.
But sure, the common clover in most peoples yards is likely Trifolium pratense.
There are native clovers, but they aren’t what you would really classify as ground cover.
Trifolium stoloniferum probably would fit that bill. But its easily outcompeted by other plants.
That’s buffalo clover right? Isn’t that extinct, or like really close to it?
Its endangered, once thought to be extinct. Like i said, its easily out competed so it relied of large harbivores to eat/trample the competition.
Would be cool to see it make a comeback on some of the buffalo reservations. Don’t know if those places have quite the herd size to make it feasible. Amazing what some of the vast herds could do to transform the prairies back in the day.
I just and to add in here that supporting your non-native bees with clover is still worthwhile. Clovers can be a good add on if you want a traditional lawn
Clover is non-native in my area. I’ve witnessed native bumblebees visiting clover, but they show a much stronger preference for larger forbs, both native and non-native. For one, they can’t nap on clover (too small, I assume, even when allowed to grow to full size). Additionally, I haven’t seen pollinators other than honeybees and bumblebees at the clover, whereas other flowers attract dozens of various species (as well as their predators, creating a fuller ecosystem).
For sure native forbs can attract more. Its not an either or, but rather a both situation. Pollinator friendly Forbs where you can and clover within your turf lawn. I personally also have been adding self-heal (mild successfully) and creeping thyme (not that successfully) into my lawn. Its a move on all front situation in my yard
For sure, I didn’t mean to negate your comment (more of a “yes and”). However I do think it is important in these conversations to acknowledge that clover isn’t a great option for yards when it comes to supporting pollinators (native or otherwise), just a better one. That said, for folks who have to have a grass yard (for rental agreement, HOA, etc reasons), clover is a great add-in. I prefer the native self-heal myself, but it has similar purple flowers and growth pattern to the invasive creeping charlie, so clover is probably the appealing, stealthier choice of the two in many places.
One of the things I remember when I visited Florida as a kid from the UK was how weird their grass was. It’s all spiky.
And kept trying to point this out but for some bizarre reason my parents weren’t interested.
It’s called St Augustine grass and it’s everywhere down there since it’s supposedly very hardy, heat resistant, and salt resistant, which is important in hot, wet, and salty Florida. And I know exactly what you mean about the spikiness; it’s not soft at all.
In my region (Tennessee) the most popular intentional lawn grass is Tall Fescue, which is very soft, but it doesn’t spread laterally, so when gaps happen due to heat and such, spiky/hard crab grass fills in the gaps, and isn’t killed by broad-leaf herbicide since it’s also grass, so semi-maintained lawns quickly get taken over. The lawns with no herbicide regimen get taken over by clover instead, so you end up with a horseshoe of sorts where the completely un-maintained lawns (fescue and clover) and meticulously-maintained lawns (pure fescue) are soft, but the lawns in the middle are spiky.
There are some native clovers but otherwise yes
There are native clovers, but they aren’t really what you would utilize for ground cover.
Just in case people are wondering about this, it’s true. Clover is a legume. Meaning it gets nitrogen from the air and puts it into the soil. This effectively means the clover is fertilizing the soil. Seeing lots of clover can be a sign that the soil lacks nitrogen and can’t grow much else.
I plant it in the walkways of my vegetable garden. Besides fixing nitrogen, it makes the Bees happy, and it’s tasty in salads and mixed greens.
Oh, and it’s super satisfying to walk on in barefeet
Oh, and it’s super satisfying to walk on in barefeet
Unless you happen upon one of those bees.
Having been stung on the sole of my foot by a bee, I 100% don’t recommend it.
“I suddenly remembered my Charlemagne. Let my armies be the rocks and the trees and the
birds in the sky.Bees in the Clover”I have my own Bee army, we would never hurt each other .
And here I thought sticking mine on the side of my house was the way to go…
Slight clarification: Dutch Clover (trifolium repens) under nitrogen deficient conditions, at temperatures above 50F and below 95F, and with the correct rhyzobium species present, with soil pH between 5.5 & 8.0, can produce nitrogen that is stored in its tissue.
When clover is mowed and the clippings mulched back into the soil, the decomposition of the leaves adds nitrogen to the soil. If you remove the clippings the nitrogen goes with it.
Clover doesn’t just release more nitrogen into the soil, it takes a bit of work.
Interesting, I thought the N would be stored in the little nodules on the roots? For other legumes you’re supposed to cut them of, not pull them out, so that the roots with their nodules remain and release the N during the rotting process. Is this bullshit?
Iirc, it’s stored all over the plant. Any bits left on/in the ground will contribute to nitrogen in the soil.
The nodules in the roots are the happy little homes that the plant provides for the bacteria to grow and reproduce in.
It’s the production location, not the storage location. The nitrogen is incorporated into proteins and used all over the plant. It’s especially concentrated in legume seeds.
For example winter peas can produce up to 400lbs/acre of nitrogen during its growing season (newer varieties like Icicles etc). If you removed the top and the seeds you remove around 350-375lbs of N. So you get 25-50lns of N per acre if you leave just the roots. So it’s best to incorporate the entire plant in when the seeds reach soft dough stage.
When clover is mowed and the clippings mulched back into the soil, the decomposition of the leaves adds nitrogen to the soil. If you remove the clippings the nitrogen goes with it.
Yes, “green manure” is taking nitrogen fixing crops (like clover and beans and peanuts) and to mulch them while still green, and incorporate that decomposing mulch into the soil you’re using. That adds nitrogen in fewer steps than the traditional way of using animal manure (where the nitrogen still ultimately comes from plants).
Of course, the modern Haber process also fixes nitrogen through industrial chemistry rather than agriculture, so most commercial fertilizer today gets its nitrogen from chemical synthesis of atmospheric nitrogen into ammonia.
50°F = 10°C
95°F = 35°C
Anon is right, but ONLY ABOUT THIS!!! I’ve heard Nevada has been using this to conserve water. Im gonna put some on my lawn tomorrow.
Clover is a great drought resistant “carpet” as a replacement for the water greedy grass yards (which are also largely impractical).
Also great for bee life and other pollinators. The reason they stopped putting it in lawns was because of selective herbicides that kill all plants EXCEPT grass and some marketing fuck-knuckle (string them all up and ban the teaching of marketing) decided that clover had to go so they could sell herbicides that also kill pollinating insects. Happened in the 50s I think.
some marketing fuck-knuckle (string them all up and ban the teaching of marketing)
Based, I love that this platform doesn’t remove morally correct comments like this one
Would planting clover in an already moist lawn be not a so great idea if you’re trying to keep moisture away from your house?
> Trust everything on 4chan
Possibly the worst lesson imaginable.
Greentext knows its green stuff.
This is 100% true
Admen for companies like Monsanto in the 1950s pushed the idea of the “green lawn” and rebranded clover as a weed to push herbicides and nitrogen fertilizers
Clover is resilient with lower water needs, its softer, it naturally deters pests, and most importantly it pulls nitrogen from the air and pushes it into the soil.
Once again advertisers prove that they are absolute scumbags with no ethics whatsoever who will value making a dollar over destroying ecosystems
Decided to go with clover this summer. Fuck me it’s expensive! And now I learn it used to be filler?! Robbery.
advertisers prove that they are absolute scumbags
I honestly didn’t believe that until, one day, a scumbag came calling with a ‘brilliant IT idea’ that only myself and my colleagues could build. I’ll put it this way: we realized that this guy would literally not stop until he covered the entire world with advertising, as though we were supposed to live in an environment modeled after a college dorm corkboard. No thanks.
Have you not seen how advertising destroys everything it touches and co-opts every space, continually intruding further and further to become more “effective”
I know you have because you are here on the internet. Depending on your age you have likely seen the decline of sites like reddit, youtube, google, etc. if your older you’ve probably seen newspapers get destroyed in a similar fashion, television, etc. outdoor advertising (billboards, in stores, signage, etc) has only become more obtrusive, offensive, and ever present through the decades as well
Admen find a space where people are, shove themselves into it, take that space over, then demand control of that space to enforce that their ads are “respected”. With the modern internet they shamelessly steal tons of data about you so their ad spends can be more “effective” because again, they have no ethics whatsoever. They don’t care if that complete violates your privacy and they don’t care if that data continually gets breached when it’s handed through 80 brokers. “Well, I wasn’t the one that did it! Doesn’t matter that I perpetuate a system that’s totally fucked” Except for cases like Google and meta of course where they absolutely were the ones who were. But again, no ethics whatsoever
Fuck advertisers. Advertisers are the bane of existence. They dont believe in their products, they just believe in soulless consumerism. They fight unfair; if you create systems to evade their bullshit they use their power to destroy those systems (going back to things like tivo). They are the devil, the antichrist. Kill all admen and make the world a better place. If you work in advertising take a long hard look at your life and figure out where it all went wrong, and then go work a more respectable job like being the person who changes urinal ice in strip clubs.
How am I supposed to use my Turf Builder® every 2 months, 4 times a year?
Oh my god is this that bodybuilding forum post, are you doing the bodybuilding forum post thing
Not specifically, but I’m glad I’m not the only one who thought of that when I read this.
You spread it every two months, four times. Then stop.
You skip the winter. For example, maybe you apply it in March, May, July, and September. (Or April, June, August, and October? IDK I don’t actually fertilize my lawn.)
Oh yeah, didn’t think about that. Thanks!
I could help but last time I tried to fertilize a lawn I got arrested.
Sounds vaguely socialist
OMG… Are you saying nature has better solutions than chemical companies?
Blasphemy.
As a chemist, you made me laugh. But, there is really nothing natural about a lawn.
Sorry, Monsanto found some of their GMO corn in your field after that comment. Time to give up the farm!
Of course not. You can’t monetize nature all that directly, so clearly it’s not “better”. /s
What clover would you need and where to get
A dwarf Dutch Clover like mini or micro clover is what you are looking for. Some It’s a smaller form that blends very well with grass and requires very little maintenance.
Some people use standard forage type ladino or Dutch Clover. I have even seen some people use red clover (trifolium pretense).
You can get it by special ordering it online or a local seller with turf grass dealer/distribution contracts.
It’s best to buy the seed innoculated and coated.
It’s seeded at around 2-3bs/acre so a little goes a long ways.
If I could pick your brain for a minute. What kind of clover would you use for the Midwest US and what season is the most optimal to spread them?
Dutch, red clover are both good options. Dutch will only grow a 6-8" tall. Red clover can get up to 18". The micro clover pipolina is one that I personally like and only gets 2-3" tall…
In difficult spots subterranean clover can survive. It’s an interesting species as it’s seeds are formed underground like a peanut.
Wow, I appreciate the detailed response! How did you come to learn so much about plants?
It’s been my career for over 3 decades now. I have traveled the globe as an expert on the subject until the constant travel messed up my health. Been to every continent but Antartica. Currently I am running my own business selling seeds farmers/others as the most overqualified salesman around.
I liberally spread that stuff in all the dead patches in my years 2 falls ago. The first year almost nothing but the 2nd year and it has really taken over.
Sometimes growing from seed requires patience. It similarly took the self-heal* I spread in my yard a couple years to pop up, but it’s doing great now.
*Not a nitrogen fixer like clover, but unlike clover it is native in my area (iirc it’s native to most of the globe) so I generally prefer it.
There’s so many things I want to believe
I don’t know what you intended to link to, but this just links to an image search results page with a random assortment of seemingly unrelated results
Works on .world
For OP it’s currently an embed of this image: https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/a376f402-ef52-4bd7-a3a8-a35cd68a2f1d.gif
(and yes, as mbin gang I also still just see a duckduckgo search link lol)
It should be fixed now. I am not sure how I screwed it up. Tried again and it pasted the actual image instead—like it has every time before.
It’s okay, we all make mistakes—just ask my parents.
I blame my phone
Only in Lemmy would we see “ask my parents” instead of “ask YOUR parents”. We’re all a bunch of ADHD, autistic, low self esteem bunch of people, aren’t we?
When I got a lawn, I didn’t do anything to it. It gets mowed every two weeks, but that’s it. After a particularly nasty drought most of the grass died. A few months later, clover started popping up on its own. It’s much better than grass, and now a bunny likes to visit us.
She’s #4 all time on there! I took this better picture this week but hadn’t posted it yet because it’s “babie week” there.
Everything about this comment brings me so much joy
We get lots of bunny visitors at my place as well, but I noticed a couple have crazy big ticks around their ears. Luckily we haven’t gotten any in the house or anything, but has def made me less “pro-bunny” lately.
That shouldn’t make you less pro-bunny. It should make you more pro-possum. It’s an ecosystem. We threw it out of wack, but there are things that help keep tick populations down.
Also chicken right?
Don’t want to say where I’m at, but we don’t really have possums in my area :/
Possums don’t actually eat ticks (but we should still be pro-possum for other environmental reasons)
https://outdoor.wildlifeillinois.org/articles/debunking-the-myth-opossums-dont-eat-ticks
Turns out they will eat ticks in a study that only fed them ticks.
And they don’t even have proof that they ate those ticks- odds are the ticks were all embedded in their skin lol
Unfortunately the thing about opossums, as well as chickens and guinea fowl, being tick control may not be empirically supported.
https://extension.psu.edu/do-chickens-guinea-fowl-or-opossums-control-ticks
I would love to be proven wrong if anyone else has other info :(
The rabbit in my yard had a pretty big tick on it. I just don’t walk where the tall plants are.
is everything else on this site also true?
Only when greentexted.
Clovers are far superior to grass. We had them mixed in pretty thoroughly growing up on our brand new property with the shittiest clay dirt imaginable. The farmland it all replaced was undoubtedly packaged and sold somewhere else.
I grew up on an American farm and I cannot comprehend the suburbs. Grass just grows, it was there before developers bull dozed whatever forest / farm / wetland was already there to install impossible to walk cul-de-sacs everywhere. Less massive yards and more public parks would be better for everyone.
As someone who lives in the San Bernardino foothills I can assure you grass doesn’t just grow it dries out and gets replaced by an invasive species of central Asian plant. The housing tracts must be baptized in hundreds of invasive tumbleweeds followed by an inferno caused by a Bic lighter.
What is this central Asia plant because nothing grows under the swing set.
I said it in my comment. It’s the very annoying bitch tumbleweed.
Grew up in the countryside where our yard ended where my dad stopped cutting the grass, one time I messed up his line and we found a horseshoe pit while fixing it, so we got a bigger yard with horseshoes 😂
