Last year I had my lawn completely scalped 4-6 inches. Brought in new topsoil and then had it hydroseeded. Fertilized and watered as instructed. As it grew ended up with a lot of dirt patches. The Hydroseed company claimed it was due to the topsoil containing too many organics which pulled nitrogen away from the grass. They suggested putting down lime which I did. This year I still have a lot of light grass coverage with visible soil. Also had huge growth of clover which quickly outgrows the grass every week. I don’t really care about an absolutely pristine lawn but the reason we did all this was to get a good healthy lawn without exposed dirt that the dog would track in all winter as mud. The clover essentially choked out all the grass. Thoughts?
by Zerofricksgiven
21 Comments
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Woah, I literally never seen so much clover in my life. There is something very wrong going on here… the steps you laid out absolutely should have resulted in at least a mediocre quality lawn, something is missing from the story.
Speedzone will absolutely shred that clover – 1.5oz per gallon. Apply when it’s medium temp outside, 55-70deg otherwise it’ll damage what grass is there. Wait a minimum 2 weeks and apply again if needed.
Once the clover has been knocked back and you can see what is underneath you can make a plan. To me, I think your priority this year is to keep weeds at bay, make sure the soil is in good shape, core aerate etc. Dont trust the company, take a soil sample and send it in and remedy any issues that highlights.
Come the end of the summer/early fall buy some high quality seed (Twin City Seed as an example) and heavily overseed, putting down some Tenacity (brand name for the chemical Mesotrione) to make sure weeds don’t pop up and choke out your baby seeds.
Again, Speedzone (I had to go to SiteOne to get mine) will absolutely shred that clover.
Thats fucking beautiful
My wife convinced me to swap to a clover yard for 75% of the area. It was tuff to give my Sunday rituals but it stays green and requires no water. Also very dog/kid friendly, minimal abuse.
If you want to keep the Clover, you will have to train it to grow low. This is full White-Dutch and not Microclover so it will grow fairly tall and uneven as shown.
BUT! You can train Clover to grow low by mowing it quite often for a season or two.
Clovergrowth 🍀
Let it grow, let it grow!
Looks like my lawn, that I intentionally seeded with 100% microclover 🥰
I’m just kinda curious what it looks like after a mow and cleaning up around the fence?
Dang this is out of control weed growth. You need to start spraying this with 2-4d, diacamba and triplycor if you want to salvage this lawn.
The clover is excellent. It’s fixing nitrogen which your grass needs. In a year, the clover will largely have faded. I would do some seeding to make sure it’s grass that comes in behind it.
This looks so much better than a cookoe-cutter grass lawn. Better for the environment, too.
Clover is amazing. If you mow it regularly like a regular lawn it will not outcompete the grass. The grass will start to fill in and you’ll have 50-50 grass with clover. Between the two of them weeds don’t stand a chance. It’ll be awesome.
Looks awesome
Well let me go against the mob of people telling you to keep it how it is and how clover is better, it’s absolutely not better for your desired purpose which is to avoid a pit of mud. It’s fantastic as a cover crop, amazing as a pioneer plant for fixing poor soil, and it’s ability to put nitrogent back into the soil is amazing but it’s a horrible turf grass.
It doesn’t tolerate foot or paw traffic very well and it dies back in the winter leaving you with nothing but a pit of mud. If you want to get rid of it I suggest spraying ortho weedclear, it’s like a baby version of speedzone but it’s cheaper and easily available at just about any hardware store for $10-$12 instead of the $40 for speedzone.
And if you plan on seeding after killing all the clover using tenacity to prevent any new clover from popping up:
https://www.amazon.com/Torocity-Herbicide-Concentrate-Mesotrione-Residential/dp/B09SBR4BBR/
Just be sure to wait 1 week after spraying before reseeding.
Good guide for controling clover [https://www.lawncareguides.com/lawn-problems/weeds/clover](https://www.lawncareguides.com/lawn-problems/weeds/clover)
Clover and grass get along fine if you mow them.
I WISH I could get clover to grow like that. I had a ton of microclover (though still not as much as you) after I seeded a mix with grass a few years ago, and it keeps getting thinner. The areas with clover do a lot better with our bone-dry summers.
Just keep cutting, maybe step the frequency of cuts, aim for 3.0 inches.
Clover weirdos have taken over this sub..
Go make a sub for clover and get the hell out of here. This is lawncare.