On Thu, 07 Jun 2007 01:50:03 -0000, Joe wrote:
I've been reading that clover is beneficial to a lawn and I should be
happy to have it but it's taking over many of the grass areas of my
lawn. My question - will the flowers eventually go away leaving just
the green clover? The flowers are very low to the ground so they
escape the lawnmower blades. I don't mind the clover at all just don't
want the white flowers all over the yard.

My suggestion: do nothing except mow for a year and see how you feel then.

It's easier to adjust your thinking than the plant (they just keep on
blooming whenever conditions are right). The clover is saving you
a couple or three applications of nitrogenous fertilizer to the lawn;
when there's sufficient soil N for the grass, the grass will outgrow the
clover; when N is lacking, the clover will outgrow the grass.

Just be sure to mow at the correct height for your lawn species, and
don't remove more than 1/3 of the top growth at a time.

DH was bothered by all the clover in our lawn when we moved out to the
country. When I told him he was therefore in charge of fertilizing,
here was the schedule, he suddenly decided he was less bothered by
the clover. ;-)

A couple things to know, one biological, one economic:
--Applying N to nitrogen-fixing legumes like clovers will
suppress them from fixing nitrogen.
So don't "half-feed" -- then neither the grass nor the clover
grow particularly well.
--most commercial fertilizers will track natural gas prices quite closely,
and gas prices are unlikely to go anywhere but up. Perhaps you can
start imagining the clover flowers to look like coins... g
http://www.ipm.iastate.edu/ipm/icm/2001/1-29-2001/natgasfert.html

Kay