Clover

Someone asked me recently what I think of lawns and the answer is, not much. I do have soccer-playing children so I know it's important to have a place for kids to play sports (although children also need trees for climbing and forests for exploring).  However, grass does little to promote biodiversity, mainly because it neither flowers nor seeds. We cut it with our, most often gas -powered, lawn mowers before it can get to those stages. I am an advocate of turning lawns into garden beds. In places where this is not possible, I think people should try to grow ground covers that flower.

One of my favourite plants for this purpose is white Dutch clover. It grows to about 8 inches and then flowers - so it doesn't need to be cut. It attracts pollinators - mainly bees. It is also pretty and your kids can spend hours looking for four leaf clovers. It is not native to south-western Ontario but neither is grass the way we grow it and at least clover plays a positive function in a backyard ecosystem. It is a perennial and is fairly slow to spread (which is a good thing!).

One part of my (former) lawn was dug up in the building of a garden shed last year so I am sowing tons of clover in that area. In the other lawn area, I am trying to promote the growth of clover in amongst the grass. Of course, much of the lawn is in the process of being converted to garden beds. Clover is also useful as a cover crop because when you do eventually cut it, it releases nitrogen into the soil as it decays.

You can get organic clover seeds from Richters Herbs and less expensive non-organic but open-pollinated seeds from Westcoast Seeds. I'll post pictures as my clover lawn grows!