If we all took a handful of clover seed turning bare earth into a lush green, soil nourishing, insect feeding, tightly knit low green mat of trifoliate leaves.
“We’d be making a big step to Saving the Planet!”
Big statement aside there are plants on our planet that are made to heal, plants that perform near miracles that industry have surpassed in favor of hard currency.
The first thing I did in my tiny urban garden was line my pathway with clover and along with an array of native and garden perennials my garden has been alive with pollinators all Summer long. Monarch and Swallow butterflies fed from my bee balm and milkweed, hummingbirds loved my Mexican Sunflower and Canna Lillies. Bees made a b-line for my borage, salvia and zinnia.
Clover largely dis-regarded for many years is making a come back and rightly sow! Today farmers are utilizing clover resources to feed livestock, nourish the soil and feeding accompanying crops.
Nitrogen fixating root nodules of the clover plant furrow deep into the topsoil and even subsoil where they release nitrogen that there aerial leaves have previously absorbed from the air. Clover has very long and intensive root system that penetrates deep earth crust. No more double digging! If your looking to improve your soils condition, provide it winter protection then a clover patch is the way to go.
Sow in Fall and let the green bed of clover leaves protect your soil from the worst winter weather. Depending on your hardiness zone clover may remain evergreen through winter. Once the soil thaws it’s time to dig the green manure clover into the earth, turning over the earth a spade at a time and chopping up the clover leaves and roots will help improve your soils friability and nutrition. A friable or conditioned soil is rich in organic matter, balanced in nutrients with free draining yet water retaining capabilities and since double digging is so tabu these days, why not use clover to do the job for you.
Many green garden manure advocates use fresh Autumn sowings of clover to naturally enrich the vegetable garden and provide a green blanket protection from Winter weather.
Micro Clover creates a low maintenance lawn that only requires cutting once a month reducing the need to mow your lawn every week. Once you begin mowing your clover the lawn choose a height that works best for your new lawns requirements.
Longer clover lawns will flower, attract pollinators, bees even butterflies a shorter mown clover lawn will keep a lush green color for as long as you are able to provide timely irrigation.
Bees are so important to our environment as under extreme threat from pesticide use in farming and on a smaller scale gardeners too. We all have a responsibility to encourage bees and pollinators to tend to our garden flowers they play an essential role in the health of our garden plants and their on-going survival.
A field of white clover is alive with insect life and whilst they are nourishing themselves on the clover flowers the clover roots are nourishing the earth. Clover often considered a weed in lawns is actually feeding your lawn and surrounding plants for free!
Think you are environmentally friendly think recycling is going to save the planet? Afraid not but one tiny plant may be the answer to not only saving the endangered humble bumble bee, feeding our impoverished earth and nourishing a huge range of pollinators but also recent studies suggest Red Clover can heal the body and mind.
Who know’s you might even be lucky enough to grow a patch of four leaf clover!
Grow with me on
Head Gardener and International Horticultural Consultant
“It’s a beautiful thing when a career and a passion grow together, when you find it in a Garden it’s like finding Paradise“
iGrowHort – A Head Gardener’s Horticultural Journey of love, life and learning.