Easy care lawns - in praise of clover

I'm trying to reduce maintenance in my garden and have not been mowing the grass at the top of my garden. The grass close to the house, I've been cutting as short as possible. The result is that the overgrown grass at the top has taken ages to mow - I've had to go over it twice, once with the mower at an angle - and now looks like a field; the grass close to the house hasn't grown at all and is almost all clover, which is in flower and looks very pretty.

As a result, I want to encourage the clover. I'm after a lawn which looks great and needs no care!!

If I wait till the clover has finished flowering and set seed, then crop it and spread the cuttings on the top grass - will the seed take, or will it need to be raked in?

Any other ideas on how to reduce maintenance?

 

I've just been mowing mine like normal and slowly but surely the clover is spreading, sorry it's not much of an answer but I've love a lawn I didn't have to mow as often.

 

" I'm after a lawn which looks great and needs no care!!"

I see a long queue building for folk who want to hear your secret!

To me a "great looking lawn" will have only fine grasses, and be nicely and frequently mown. Artificial grass would probably give the same effect, and just need Hovering!

 

My lawn has a lot of clover in it and it looks really pretty. The bees are very busy there. I hate mowing the lawn so I have decided not to aim for perfection. I just run the mower where needed and then every couple of months tidy up the bits that have been missed- round the trees, close to the hedge, beside the greenhouse, round the pond.

 

Perhaps the confusion is in the definition of "great looking lawn". My definition is the less I have to mow it, the greater it is! A bowling green lawn is all very well, but I'm no lawn-slave.

In America, Canada and Oz (probably more, but these 3 are the ones I know about), lawns with grass don't survive without water. Water = money. Gardeners are being encouraged to forget fine grass lawns in favour of clover. Living on the south coast and on metered water, I'm tempted to follow suit......BEFORE it becomes a PC, environmentally friendly issue and the cost of white clover seed rockets!


Katherna - cut your grass really short - then leave it! I haven't mown for over a month and it looks fine.....well, not fine, but clover!

 

Hi linlin,

The clover will seed itself, and spread over time. But as most people on here know-I personally cant stand green carpets in gardens, and am held an emotional hostage by Mr Pops who is a lawn fan( but not a lawn slave), and I think daisies and red and white clover are just about the best excuse to have one. If its green it stays! If I dont have to work on it then it stays!

 

Sorry linlin, I missed off abit. How about sowing wild meadow seed at the top end and leaving it to die back by itself each yr-plenty of butterflies that way.

 

I'm on a water meter so watering the grass is out. I've cut the back lawn again today, it looked a little sorry for itself afterwards - mainly yellowish, but by this evening when I went out with the watering can it had perked up a lot. I've been pulling out the creeping buttercup that invaded from nextdoor before they dug up their lawn, very slow process but at least now I can see the runners and start to get them out. It looks nice when it's in flower but I've been told it'll kill off my clover (plus it's trying to invade the veg patch and thats just not on ) All I need now is to get the bare patches covered with something - I noticed theres lots of them, might get the cheap asda seed out again - it worked where expensive ones failed - must remember to water it though this time otherwise I'll be waiting forever.

 

"I'm on a water meter so watering the grass is out"

And if you weren't on a meter everyone else would be paying for it!

I think is nuts that we don't have dual-water supply - potable/drinking water and "grey water" for garden use - and probably suitable to be plumbed for loo-flush etc. Barking that we chlorinate and clean up the water to then use it to wash the car ...

One of my partly completed projects is a rainwater harvesting system here so that all garden water is caught/stored, rather than using mains water.

 

New regs means that our street is all metered but the houses that were built ayear or two earlier pay water rates. My mum and dad pay twice as much as I do, their house is water rates, we had no choice on a meter or not.

 

I think its much fairer. Anything that you pay a flat rate for gets abused by some people, and not fixing dripping taps, or leaving the hose running (e..g because it doesn't "cost" anything) annoys me.

FWIW we've cut our water usage by half in the last 2 years by being more thoughtful. Simple things like a little clockwork timer - so when I fill the waterbutt in the vegetable garden I can't forget and water the whole Veg patch by accident :eek: as well as not flushing the loo when we take a pee.

 

Some people in the street use a lot more water than we do and are complaining that their bills are huge, my bill is on average £240 max for the year, theirs are a lot lot higher but then they wash the car with the hose, water their lawns, etc;
I lug watering cans to water my plants - if you do this you suddenly become aware of how much water you're using - as your arms start to fall off, I do use my hosepipe for spraying leaves on my beans but someone in the kitchen switches it on and off when I yell so really not much water being used and the run off from the hose being rewound is used to water some plants as well
My shrubs get watered until they're up and running and then they're left to their own devices. I do get comments like how come your garden looks really nice (I can see all the problems that need fixing and jobs that need doing) I've watered my plants like mad and they're not doing as well as yours - my answer is I don't water them they've two choices they can live or die!
I've been told you can put a brick in your cistern to help reduce the water you use with each flush as well, haven't tried this one yet as I've used all my bricks I've dug up to help edge between my veg patch and nextdoors gravel board.

 

I tried the brick-in-the-cylinder trick, and then discovered it didn't flush well enough much of the time, so wound up flushing twice ... so I took the brick out and Plan B is to flush only when I think its necessary. (We've got Short/Long flush buttons on the cistern too, which helps).

Still use too much of everything though ... hopefully will switch to wood-burning central heating boiler this year, which will make me, and my wallet too I hope!, feel better

 

Our metered water costs well over £450 pa. We wash the car once a year and never, ever, water the garden so all water used is domestic only, and that's for two people. I understand Southern Water is one of the most expensive.
Living within two miles of the south coast, the weather is very dry and drought conditions occur every summer. Clover keeps it's colour in drought conditions far better than grass and I want to go on holiday without returning to grass thats grown so long my mower won't cope. Hence the need to actively encourage and propagate the clover!
BTW - I'm trying wildflowers in other areas, but the lawn grasses grow too long between cuts.

 

Hi Kristen, I completely agree with you, my family travelled to Cyprus where they have it there.