Clover vs. Grass

Not too long after we moved into our house 3 1/2 years ago we did some upgrades to the backyard including putting in a 6'x10' patch of grass because I wanted at least a little bit of green in the yard. At the time SO wanted to put artificial turf because it would take less maintenance but agreed to the grass on the condition that if it died within a year we'd replace it with the artificial turf. It did great for the first couple of years but last spring, with all the rain rain rain clover took over the shadiest corner of it. (the grass section of the yard doesn't get a ton of sun even in mid-June because of our neighbor to the south's tree and our fence on the west side.) Now we're in the middle of a second really wet winter and the clover has taken over about a third of the patch. I've looked into eradicating the clover and it doesn't look too tough but it would leave us with a big dead spot where we'd have to restart grass. Plus it will probably be an ongoing fight to keep the clover at bay. SO suggested just letting the clover take over the whole thing. It would still be green and would take minimal effort to maintain. Just cutting it back from time to time to keep it from overtaking the deck that sits next to the green patch. I like... actually no... I love low maintenance, but would it be weird to have a clover patch instead of grass in our yard? When SO suggested this I mused about whether our real estate agent could sell clover as "better than grass" if/when we sell this place.

Clover is very popular these days in place of lawn turf. Sounds like you have the right climate so I say give it a shot.

Bees love clover. Who can argue with helping bees?

We've been slowly transitioning our small bit of lawn to clover from turf grass. It's definitely a thing: less maintenance, more pollinator friendly, and the bunnies love clover, so tend to do less feeding on garden plants if clover is available.
I say act like you planned it all along!

yes, nature is doing your work for you here! Just let it continue to do so!

Definitely clover.

As part of our local Master Gardener series, I wrote an article for the local library about creating a pollinator garden and one of the bullet points was this surprising statistic:

"DO create a “bee lawn.” Introduce some native, low-growing species like bee-loving clover and creeping thyme, which will survive a mower blade set at 3 inches. A bee lawn can attract 50 pollinator species—while a typical turf lawn attracts 4!"

Here is the resource I used: "Planting and Maintaining a Bee Lawn."

https://extension.umn.edu/landscape-...ining-bee-lawn

I agree with everyone else - let the clover grow. We mow our yards (front and back), but don't do any fancy maintenance stuff. Whatever grows, grows.

I don’t mine bits of clover in our bluegrass lawn. We don’t fertilize the lawn or treat it with weed killer or do too much maintenance on it at all. But I will say that any patch of clover seems to get dry faster than grass, shrinking into itself and then it doesn’t cover the space, allowing tall weeds to form. It might cover better during wetter season. But in San Francisco area with those misty days and cooler climates, it might be consistently OK.

I vote for clover, too.

Clover. Our large yard is whatever nature plants. We just mow it to keep it sort of tidy. We have a lot of clover, violets, dandelion, and other things some people think of as weeds. We also have lots of bees of varying types, plenty of other bugs, toads, tree frogs, etc. I have never understood the desire for a patch of "perfect" green, weed-free, dead to all other life-forms, lawn.

Last summer we dug up our water-hoggy dying bluegrass lawn and seeded it with blue grama which is a short grass prairie native. I have a few patches of clover in the back shadier areas mostly to feed the soil and cause I think it's purdy.

So it sounds like it's unanimous. We'll let the clover take over if that's what nature wants to happen. I'm good with that since the clover is pretty too and anything that takes less maintenance work from me seems like a win. Being better for pollinaters and all that is just an unexpected bonus.

What I think is another added bonus to clover is the calming, zen-like feeling when I just stop and spend a bit of time looking for a lucky four-leaf clover!