Clover Lawn

Initiated 2024

Can we reduce lawn care costs by growing a pollinator-friendly alternative to grass? Could one suit private gardens, large estate greens, roadside verges, and even roundabouts?

In Spring 2024 a volunteer swapped their grass lawn to test our theory by growing a low-maintenance flowering carpet of clover.

Read on to find out why everyone would benefit from this being a success.

What's the lawn problem?

Developers remodeled our local environment with grass lawns making it appear 'neat and tidy' but costly to maintain, and with the worrying downside that this has contributed to 'Biodiversity Loss'.

The mere mention of wasting time and money should make everyone question their actions and choose less costly options. Long-term grass maintenance is both time-consuming and financially expensive. This may not pose much of a problem for those with small gardens but for the 22 football pitches worth of estate lawns within the Johnstown neighbourhood it is a significant problem. Local estate groups raise over €50,000 from residents to cut and maintain public lawn spaces - perhaps money better spent on something else?

Also, the growing amount of hard landscaping coupled with lawn space has significantly reduced the number and variety of native long grasses, trees, plants, mosses, algae, lichen, insects, birds, and wildlife. This is often referred to as Biodiversity Loss. The spaces left to grow wild are under increasing pressure to support this dwindling biodiversity. The repetitively grassed urban spaces with single species, short-height grass lawns produce little food, and no shelter or protection, for any other creatures. For decades society has continued to urbanise more and more rural spaces without changing the design brief for a better environmental balance.

Why do we have grass in our lawns?

Once it was a status symbol for those with vast wealth but estate developers imposed the burden on residents.

Households spend time and money feeding, watering, and cutting crops that they can't eat and don't use. Historically the large front lawns belonging to the rich were kept neat and short to display the owner's extreme wealth but they didn't use grass. Although there are over 4,000 varieties of grasses it was low, and slow, growing thyme with chamomile and clover mixed in that formed the original lawns of the mansion estates. Before the advent of the mechanical lawnmower in the 1830s either cattle would graze the display or labourers would spend hours cutting it with scythes.

Thanks to the wealthy games of golf we now have lush green soft-leaf low grasses, and football helped create hardwearing varieties. Grasses engineered for performance established a multi-billion euro worldwide business replicating this in our homes. Even clover once appeared in lawn seed mixes as a cheaper 'filler' but this was later marketed alongside every other lawn flower as being weeds.

The housing estate developer specifies grass because it has 'curb appeal', is family-friendly, creates flexible use spaces, and it quickly covers the bare ground. Lawns can be grown in fields, arrive at building sites on the back of trucks, and easily unrolled to create instant lawns. Seeded over vast areas grasses quickly establish public green spaces within weeks.

The Clover Option.

Common across Europe, with either red or white flowers, it produces a low-level lush green carpet all year round that doesn't need to be mowed or watered.

Using clover as a cover crop has several benefits:

Being part of the pea family it has deep roots to draw up water and therefore tolerates dry periods.
It is fast growing and can therefore out-compete other plants.
It flowers throughout the growing season and provides food for pollinators.
Birds eat the juicy and nutritious leaves.
Self-seeding clover doesn't need mowing unless you wish to tame the height and level the area.
It can grow alongside grasses, or other lawnflowers, improving their growth by fixing nitrogen in the soil.
Traditionally clover was included in most lawn seed mixes as it was the cheaper filler when grass seeds were more expensive.
The clippings can create excellent mulch and compost material.

Year One

A sheltered north facing area 10sqm sown in Spring and treated in much the same way as it would in the public area.

Sown in late April these seeds were more than enough to cover the test bed.

8th May

The first signs of germination came within 2 weeks of being sown in the 3mx3m bed.

Only clover seed has been spread to evaluate its performance. Future sowings are likely to include a mix of plants.

30th May

Most seeds have germinated and, having laid dormant in the soil, Borage is also making an unexpected appearance.

6th June

Some areas are doing better than others and soon the borage will be removed to avoid it smothering the bed.

23rd July

There is some evidence that leaves are being eaten but that is the benefit of changing from grass and supporting biodiversity.

Sparrows have recently been seen nibbling on the leaves.

1st August

Although it appears as a flat green dense carpet it is quite 'bumpy' and unexpectedly 6 to 12 inches high. It can be lowered by cutting with a mower but we'll wait to see if it flowers first.

1st August

A dozen flower heads have appeared and each lasts a week.

Chickweed is rife but since it also benefits pollinators it is tolerated and isn't hindering the clover.

11th August

Marigolds keep popping up in the lawn adding vibrance and contrast.

9th November

Still vibrant and green, although no flowers remain. The section where the lily plant shaded the soil has become bare.

Year One Verdict

With only a brief trial period we are sufficiently encouraged.

Key findings:

The Clover seeds germinated quickly largely due to the wet summer.
Autumn may be a better time for sowing when frost and cold conditions limit competition from prevalent weeds, and the earlier plant maturity should produce flowers from Spring to Autumn.
The crop rose 12 inches in height much more than anticipated. A small test section was cut to 3 inches high but returned to full height within weeks. Alternative varieties might be lower-growing.
To increase biodiversity without raising maintenance costs a more interesting ground cover could be created by sowing other seeds alongside clover.
You can't walk over a pure clover lawn without leaving footprints as you squash the plant. It does recover within a day or two but isn't ideally suited to foot traffic.