I'll defend the desire to get rid of clover. I don't mind a little bit,
but when the clover has spread over my entire front yard, choking out
all grass, I think it is time to get rid of it and let the grass have
some room. From a very practical perspective, we won't be living in our
current house forever, and when the day comes to put it up for sale, I
think we will have more buyers interested if the grassy areas of our
lawn are mostly grass, and not just a field of clover.
Heidi
Starlord wrote:
Why does everyone want to kill off clover? It's a very helpfull plant and I've
seen lawns at big time hotels where they've gone to great cost to get clover to
grow in with the grass. Why? Because clover will fix Nigon into the soil and the
grass will be better off for it. Plus you will get a nice carpet of clover
flowers when it blooms. I wish I could get it to grow out here in the mojave
desert.
--
"In this universe the night was falling,the shadows were lengthening
towards an east that would not know another dawn.
But elsewhere the stars were still young and the light of morning
lingered: and along the path he once had followed, man would one day go
again."
Arthur C. Clarke, The City & The Stars
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"Tom Newton" wrote in message
...
Hi Folks -
I live on long island, Ny ... and the temps are just about ready to start
dropping below 80 consistently... I have nearly a 1/3 acre of lawn, and have
a sprinkler system
As a first year homeowner I'm relatively new to this game. Here's my
problem: I have clover, lots of clover, and I'd like to know the best
strategy to rid the lawn of it and replace it with nice grass.
Currently, clover and various other weeds (perhaps chickweed) make up about
50% of the lawn, although its dispersed pretty evenly with nice grass... or
I'll say decent grass. The house is 90 years old, and the lawn landscaping
had been neglected for quite a few years. I get good sun.
Anyway, on a recent trip to Home Depot.. the gentleman there pointed me
towards using an Ortho product called "Chickweed / Clover / Oxalis Killer"
... which is used with a sprayer, which I also bought. I tried one bottle,
which took care of test area about 25X50 ft. That was two weeks ago. Wow.
This stuff is serious! The product wiped out 100% of the clover and killed
not one blade of grass. Cool.
Anyway, now that that proof of concept succeeded, and I only tested it on
perhaps 1/10 of the area that needs fixing, I have a few questions about
timing, and the steps I should take:
1) It's August 28, should I go out, buy nine more bottles, and nuke the
whole place right now? Or is it too early? Given the fact that fall growing
season starts mid-late september here, isn't it a good idea to nuke the
place of the clover now?
2) After its all brown and dead, with all that fluff... what should I do? My
gut tells me that when everything's dead, I should a) rake up all the dead
and fluffy stuff with a stiff metal rake so the surface is fairly clean and
the top layer of soil is looser, b) overseed the whole place on September
15th or so, c) and put down starter fertilizer with that seed, and d) run
the sprinkler system at half the run times, but nightly (instead of the
normal every other day) untill germination
Is this a good attack plan? Any help on methods, timing is appreciated.
Thanks
Tom Newton
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