Mod Post
It’s that time of year again when lots of people are getting out and gardening. We usually see a big uptick in the number of posts asking about clover lawns, native lawns, and other lawn alternatives. So let’s try and answer some of the common questions and talk about what has worked well in your yards!
Some clover facts and FAQs:
-
The most common clover used in lawns is white clover (aka Dutch White Clover, micro clover, trifolium repens). It’s native to Europe and the Mediterranean region: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trifolium_repens
-
The above-ground growth of clover dies back in freezing temperatures and regrows in the spring time. This can create muddy patches of lawn in the winter, which can invite other plants to germinate in the clover. In warmer climates this isn’t a problem.
-
Since clover is not native to North America, the ecological value of white clover is pretty low. It’s similar to dandelions in that they are both non-native and early-flowering lawn plants. Bumblebees and honey bees (also not native) do get some value from the flowers, but native bees prefer native flowers and plants.
-
Question: Are there any native clovers?: Yes. There’s quite a few native trifolium species: https://bonap.net/Napa/TaxonMaps/Genus/County/Trifolium (green is native, blue is not). However you may struggle to find these native species in the quantity you’d want for a lawn. There’s also some native plants that have the common name clover, like prairie clovers: https://bonap.net/Napa/TaxonMaps/Genus/County/Dalea however these are generally too tall to grow in a lawn, and wouldn’t likely tolerate foot traffic.
-
Question: If I don’t plant clover, what else can I do to support pollinators?: Native plants have evolved alongside our native insects and birds for thousands of years. Many of us learned in school how monarch butterflies feed on milkweed plants: if you don’t have milkweed, you won’t have monarchs. This plant/insect relationship is extremely common. Some plants have a bigger impact on their ecosystem than others; these are called “keystone” plants. Planting a small pollinator garden or just landscaping with native plants is an excellent way to support your local ecosystem. Checkout NWF’s guides on the Keystone plants for each ecoregion here: https://www.nwf.org/Garden-for-Wildlife/About/Native-Plants/keystone-plants-by-ecoregion you can also take a look at the wild ones garden designs here: https://nativegardendesigns.wildones.org/designs/ these show several good examples of home landscaping with native plants (for each location). Note that most of these designs include an area of lawn!
-
Question: Are there other native lawn alternatives?: Yes, though location matters a lot here. The western half of North America, there are a lot of shorter prairie grasses that can be grown as a lawn. Buffalo grass, side oats grama, and blue grama are all good options. Here’s one guide for installation: https://www.cityofames.org/Home/ShowDocument?id=49586 In Florida and parts of the southeast, frog fruit is a good option. Sedge lawns can work in some areas too.
Feel free to ask more questions and share your experiences! We have a few different wiki pages on this issue, but I think it will be good to open this issue up to the sub and see what people say. Have you tried other lawn alternatives? Do you like clover in your lawn areas?
Sort by:
Best
Open comment sort options
Best
Top
New
Controversial
Old
Q&A
My own personal opinion on clover is that it’s not worth fighting and not worth encouraging. It’s not that different from dandelions or creeping Charlie.
Native lawns and other lawn alternatives can be interesting, and are probably much more worthwhile in very dry areas. I don’t live in an area where I need to water my lawn for it to be green. If I did live in an area like that, I’d be a lot more likely to install a native lawn.
Instead, I’m focused on lawn reduction and native landscaping / gardening. My favorite native plants are the fruits like raspberries, black chokeberry, and wild plums. r/nativeplantgardening is a great sub for discussion about native plants.
Lawns < monoculture alternatives like clover/creeping thyme < lawn with various weeds < native mixed meadow
A monoculture is still a monoculture and introducing it in the form of a non-native groundcover is only going to benefit generalist species and not prioritize native pollinators. A lawn with various weeds is at least going to appeal to various pollinators.
My experience: We have dogs and a kiddo, so we are keeping some turfgrass. I have no intrest in putting down any herbicides or fertilizer or watering etc, so those lawn maintenance tasks are not on the long term agenda. What I did- found the best, drought resisteant *good* turf grass seed for my areas; bought large quantities of seeds of some natives that can work within a trampling, mowing area: yarrow, black eyed susan, partridge pea. Got a few different clovers (not dutch white) that will probably not sustain themselves long term in the lawn (not fans of mowing etc) but will provide different root structures and help my new grass along: red, strawberry, ladino, alsike. Last fall I dethatched after mowing super short, and seeded them all together the same way a lawn would be seeded and took care of it the way uber lawn people would, minus chemical additions. I.e., did not walk on it, watered every day for two weeks and twice a week after, mowed at recommended lengths and times, etc. Added some native perennials that *might* do well in the "lawn" environment in the edges of gardens so they could spread into the turf as well.
I have been extremely happy with the results so far. It takes a lickin and keeps on tickin, I don't do anything but mow so far, and there are a variety of plants and root types to help build the terrible suburban dirt into good soil eventually. So that is what we did for the areas we needed something like a lawn or turf.
If we aren't using it as turf, we have added a bunch of different native garden areas. A bunch. We started that part of the project two years ago, so this is the third season for some of it and it really is starting to look fantastic. We really, really love it and so do the animals and bugs etc.
Slowly some sedges and path rush and buffalo grass and blue grama are also going into the turf areas, but sedges and path rush are sloooow going and I am not going to do tooooo much warm season grass as it takes quite a while to green up in my area.
I suppose I should add, the "lawn" areas that I re-did last year were 1) where an in ground pool was removed and 2) where there was mainly prostrate knotweed, quackgrass and crab grasses. not sure if that is relevant or not, but just in case
Dumb question - how would I keep my native lawn from spreading to my neighbors? Let's say I start replacing turf grass in my backyard with a nice native lawn. From my experiences using natives in the landscape, the natives take off and spread. (And I assume that spreading is good to cover the massive areas that used to be grass.) However, it won't naturally stop at my property line.
Most native lawn species aren’t that aggressive, but location and site conditions matter. I wouldn’t expect any of the bouteloua grasses to spread much outside of their area, especially if you’re mowing them occasionally. Ragwort and strawberries could spread I suppose, but if you aren’t encouraging them to spread, your neighbors might not even notice. The bigger issue is how to prevent your neighbors grasses spreading into your lawn, which can be tricky in environments where cool season grasses can survive without watering. If you have good relations with the neighbor, I’d talk to them about it.
I have an "ombre" effect started. My neighbor's lawn is the picture perfect short-mowed turf. So I mow a bit shorter in the first 20 feet on that side, and did NOT seed any wildflowers. The rest of that part of the yard, from neighbor to front walk, was lightly seeded with wildflowers and is mowed high. On the other side of the walk, going to the street, I seeded a lot of wildflowers, some ornamental native grasses and it's going feral.
Cool idea
I have converted 3 lawns to Buffalo and Blue grama grass. One was plugs of UC Verde, the other two were seeds. One lawn was seeded on bare dirt, the other is still in progress. It was overseeded into a non-native fescue and is slowly taking over.
Go to the blog and search for buffalo.
https://lazygardens.blogspot.com/