Clover

I know this isn't economics. That can't be helped. 

I looked up clover lawns (as an alternative to grass lawns), read a bunch of pages, and made some notes. I ended up with notes on ten clover-lawn sites. This is a short summary of those notes.

The first link in my notes is Before banning clover, consider its benefits (2015) at the Statesman Journal. I wasn't thinking of "banning" clover, but I did think a list of benefits might be useful, so I looked. The best sentence I found on that page turned out to be the best sentence of all the sites:

But beware that [if you use herbicide] you can't compost the lawn clippings without the risk of herbicide residual effects in your compost.

Is that obvious? Probably, because I never hear anyone pointing it out. For me, though, things are never obvious till someone points them out. The article is by Carol Savonen, who definitely gets an honorable mention for mentioning it.

The article opens with a question about using fertilizer to kill clover. Savonen answers the question, then writes:

I am going to ask you a point-blank question. What's so bad about having a little clover in your lawn? It requires little in the way of care or feeding, as it has the ability to take nitrogen from the air, making its own fertilizer.

From my notes:

I, too, like the idea of clover "making its own fertilizer" for my lawn. But those large clover leaflets -- three on every clover leaf, unless you get lucky -- are visual misfits in a grass-blade lawn. Round and heart-shaped leaves just don't belong with the long, narrow blades of lawn grass. Silly? Maybe. But that's one of the places my mind goes when I mow.

My perfect lawn wouldn't have a mix of clover and grass because I don't like the look of it. I thought about having an all-clover lawn, because the clover in my lawn stays green when my lawn grass goes brown, dormant or dead in the hot, dry summer. I thought about that, but I already have clover flowers floating over my lawn, all over my lawn. When those flowers turn brown they look like burdock burrs. It's not a pretty sight. 

I see them, and I have to mow again. So it's not like clover means less mowing.

I wanted to see why people like clover lawns and the grass/clover mix. My question is not "Why ban clover?" but just the opposite: What's so great about clover? And that is how I came to write this post.

The second clover link in my notes is Lawns and Microclover, from the University of Maryland Extension. In this one also I found a "best sentence" -- the latter sentence here:

Because of these characteristics and their nitrogen-fixing ability, there is interest in using microclover in lawns to enhance turfgrass growth and reduce nitrogen fertilizer applications. Limiting nitrogen runoff is a goal of the Maryland Lawn Fertilizer Law as part of broader efforts to protect the Chesapeake Bay.

It seems there is a lot of concern about the environment, and action, too. That's good. But it never shows up in the news. I didn't know things had progressed so much. Still, I am left wondering: Can we plant too much clover? Can we get too much nitrogen in the soil, from clover? Wouldn't that nitrogen also run into the Chesapeake Bay and harm the environment?

Yes, apparently that can happen. So maybe the problem is not what we choose to grow for our lawns, but how much lawn we have. Maybe the civilized world is too big for the natural world. And maybe that's what caused the fall of Rome. 

Great. 

Okay. I'm going to drop this thought right now and go back to clover.

The Maryland Extension link gives a description of "microclover":

Microclover refers to smaller varieties of white clover (Trifolium repens var. ‘Pirouette’ and ‘Pipolina’). These types have smaller leaves, fewer flowers, and a lower growth habit compared to Dutch white clover.

Smaller leaves, fewer flowers, and a lower growth habit: That makes an interesting comparison. Then they add this:

They also have a less aggressive clump-forming habit.

Wait, what? Clover has an aggressive clump-forming habit? A clover lawn is lumpy?

No answer.

The "visual misfits" thing arose again as I was going over my clover-lawn notes. One of the links -- Benefits of a Clover Lawn at CloverLawn.org -- suggests that microclover eliminates the misfit because the clover leaves are so small: microclover is "the smallest clover variety available and blends really well into lawns".

They say it "blends really well". But they want me to buy microclover. They have a vested interest. So I am not convinced. I'm not convinced microclover solves the problem. And according to another of the links in my notes -- Clover and Microclover Lawns -- what's the big deal? at OSC Seeds -- it doesn't solve the problem.

They point out that microclover is just a variety of white clover, not a different species. They point out that to maintain the "micro" habit (smaller leaves, fewer flowers, and a lower growth habit) regular mowing is necessary. Without regular mowing, this site says, microclover "will become more like Common White Clover, both in appearance and behaviour as the years go by."

I believe it. Microclover is a not a different species; it's just a different variety, an uncommon version of Common White Clover. If you don't keep after it, it can revert. If you let it reseed itself naturally, it can revert. If you fail to mow it regularly, it can revert.

As microclover reverts, losing its "micro" appearance, the leaves become bigger and the visual misfit between clover and lawn grass becomes more obvious. Hey, maybe it doesn't bother you. I'm not trying to convince you otherwise. But it bothers me, always, when I'm out mowing the lawn instead of sitting here at the keyboard. 

And sometimes that's twice a week.