On 7/9/11 12:02 PM, Higgs Boson wrote:
Last year I bought a flat of Pink Clover and went to a LOT of trouble
to spread the little plants around an area where I wanted ground
cover. At first they did fine;seemed to be spreading; bore those cute
tiny flowers.

But last few months, the leaves have turned red.

Does that mean this is an ANNUAL???!!!! That the plant is dying? Or
is it going into -- can't think of the word; my mind is going g -
temporary inactivity? Or what else could be happening? It's July,
facrynoutloud; plants should be flourishing.

Any experience out there?

TIA

HB

I had my entire front lawn planted with pink clover (Persicaria
capitata) more than three years ago. I also have it as a ground cover
in my rose bed in back. It is growing quite vigorously and needs to be
trimmed around the edges 3-5 times each year.

It does need some water. Mine is irrigated by lawn sprinklers every
third day. However, it is not really a thirsty plant. Thus, I set the
timer for my front lawn for fewer minutes than the rest of my garden.

I feed it generously every spring with an off-brand lawn food. In the
late fall, I sometimes broadcast a generous amount of gypsum over it so
that the winter rains (if we get any) will disolve the gypsum and leach
it into the soil to break up the clay.

When I had some repairs done to the front of my house, the workers wore
a path through the pink clover. I dosed the path with gypsum. Two
weeks later, I dosed it with lawn food. The path disappeared.

In the late fall, leaves from three large trees in front (oak,
liquidambar, and zelkova) cover the pink clover. This mulch helps
protect the plants from frost. Any exposed shoots turn quite red. Some
shoots even get frost burn despite the fact that we never really get
freezing temperatures. In the spring, the pink clover grows up through
the leaf mulch; and any surviving red shoots return to green.

--
David E. Ross
Climate: California Mediterranean, see
http://www.rossde.com/garden/climate.html
Gardening diary at http://www.rossde.com/garden/diary