You spend much time taking care of your home and garden, and the beautiful grassy lawn is your pride.
However, one day, you wake up to find your turf-grasses being overtaken by clovers. No matter what you do, the clovers keep growing over and again. So frustrating!
How to get rid of clover and have a clover-free lawn? This article presents you with every possible way of killing clovers once and for all. Let’s get started!
What is clover?
Clover is considered a weed in North America and many countries of Europe. Although it isn’t harmful to humans or pets, it can inhibit the growth of plants and grass in your lawn. That’s why many homeowners want to keep their lawn free of clovers.
Why do you have so much clover in your lawn?
You are probably wondering the same question, right?
Before finding the answer to this, you need to make sure that what you see is actually white clover, not a different plant with a similar three-leaf patterns such as black medic.
The two clear hints of clover are white flowers as well as bees and butterflies. If you see both signs, you definitely have clover in your yard.
Here are three reasons why you have clover in your lawn.
Nitrogen
Clover has an edge over grass in terms of nitrogen absorption as it can take in nitrogen from the air while grass cannot. That is why clovers still flourish when your lawn turns brown due to lack of nitrogen.
To prevent such a case, you should fertilize your lawn with nitrogen-rich fertilizers so that the grass can absorb nitrogen and stay green. Also, apply organic fertilizer regularly based on your lawn care schedule.
Low mower deck
Another condition that favors clover instead of grass is low mower deck. In other words, mowing your lawn too short creates a favorable condition for the clover to grow and flourish over and again.
Next time you mow the lawn, make sure you keep the lawn grasses a little longer by raising the deck on your lawn mowers. This is a useful lawn care tip that not many people know.
Read more: Best Lawn Mower For 3 Acres to 5 Acres
Perennial
Clover is a perennial, which means it will keep growing back year after year if you don’t try to eradicate them from your lawns.
But before getting to know ways of killing clover, you should learn about the right time to get rid of them.
How To Get Rid Of Clover
There are two main ways of killing clover, one is to do it naturally and the other is to use chemicals. Of course, natural remedies are highly recommended.
Without chemicals
Pull it out
The easiest way to get rid of the clovers in your yard is to remove them manually. Whenever you spot one or two clumps of clover, get down on your knees and pluck them up. Make sure you do it gently and avoid leaving any piece of clover roots behind. Otherwise, your efforts would go down the drain.
Of course, this method is not applicable to large infestation. Don’t worry! There are plenty of other ways to get rid of clover naturally.
Vinegar
A mixture of vinegar and dish soap is effective in killing small patches of clover. Just spray it directly on the clover patch and you will find this lawn weed dying the next day!
The best thing is you can always make this weed killer at home. Both ingredients are widely available, and it is super easy to make a mixture. More importantly, it is completely non-toxic and safe to apply on your yard. If you don’t have broad-leaf herbicides at home or simply want to save a few bucks, you can try this solution.
Plastic sheet
Plastic sheeting is another easy and cost-effective method to get rid of clover.
Prepare some dark garbage bags. What you need to do is to use the bag to cover the clover patch you want to remove. Don’t forget to place some rocks on to make sure the plastic bag stays in place. That way, you are going to kill the clover by depriving it of sunlight and oxygen.
On the flip side, this method takes ages to kill the clover, and you can only cover isolated plants.
Corn gluten meal
This is a plant byproduct used to prevent clover from spreading across your lawn. Corn gluten meal works to dry clover seeds, thereby avoiding an infestation. Note that it will dry out other seedlings as well.
Make sure you use an adequate amount of corn gluten depending on the size of your lawn. The standard ratio is 20 pounds of corn gluten meal to 1000 square feet of lawn.
With chemicals
If time is your priority, just go for chemical treatment. These two chemicals can deal with clover and other weeds as well.
Herbicides
Herbicides – the one with 4-Dichlorophenoxyacetic acid, is a chemical for weed control. It is quick and effective to kill and prevent clover growing again. Of course, it doesn’t discriminate; you should be careful when applying it to avoid killing beneficial plants in the garden.
Ammonia
Ammonia sulfate is another top choice of gardeners when it comes to getting rid of clovers. The best time to use ammonia is when the lawn is moist. In other words, you should water your grass before applying this chemical on patches of clovers.
Conclusion
Clover is a weed, but it is not entirely bad. Some gardeners even use it as a type of organic fertilizer. Of course, it still flourishes at the expense of other plants and grass. If you want to protect your turfgrasses, you can use above ways to kill clovers once and for all.
This is the end of the article on how to get rid of clover. Hopefully, from now on, you will have a lush green lawn without clovers. Thanks for reading!
Source: gardening101.net