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Lawn mowing frequency affects bee abundance and diversity (2018)
- WalterBright 5y agoI hate mowing the lawn. I might do it once a month. Glad to see confirmation of how great my laziness is!
- qiskit 5y agoAnyone look into how the noise might affect insects/animals? Personally, nothing ruins my day more than hearing a lawn mower starting on a quiet morning or afternoon.
- yeahwhatever10 5y agoNow here’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make!
- amelius 5y agoFunny thing is, staying in bed every other day would also help the bees, if everybody did it.
- crossingTime 5y ago"I can't mow this week wife, think of the bees." Thanks science.
- nemo44x 5y agoBad approach to life. My advice is to either learn to love things that have to be done (and frequently like mowing) or pay someone to do it. Life’s too short. Lawn is really fascinating when you get into it.
- oblak 5y agoOK, but can't you learn to love bees, too? I am not even half joking. The fascination with lawns, and everything that comes with it, is something I could never get. Flowers might not be manly enough but why not grow trees and/or produce? Not talking commercial efforts. Just a hobby. One that doesn't involve horrible motorized mowers, water waster, and what have you.
- davidmurdoch 5y agoNot when your kid is deathly allergic.
- oblak 5y agoAllergic to what?
- davidmurdoch 5y agoBees
- worik 5y agoBees love a good lawn (as in not a monoculture but a mosaic of flowering "weeds") Also having a space around your house means it can be more easily defended from file Gardens with flowers and vegetables have the same benefits, but are more work and make the ground unusable for the dogs and their children
- nemo44x 5y agoAlso erosion control. Lawns are great for controlling that.
- nemo44x 5y agoGrowing produce is super hard. It also requires more water than a lawn for similar area. But you can also do both. We have a pretty big vegetable patch too. But I love a lawn. They’re beautiful and it’s a fun hobby. They also make a great ecosystem for lots of bugs and worms which love organically fertilized earth. Lawns are also a carbon sink depending on how you maintain it. Not to mention they’re great for erosion issues. Not to mention the kids love playing on it. As for water I live in an area where you can’t really “waste” water. Mowers can be electric as well.
- vidarh 5y agoOr affect change to not need it. My advice is to not have a lawn, and instead culture semi-wild patches of flowers by only weeding what is unattractive. No mowing for me, and no high maintenance manicured flower beds, and lots of bees.
- amanaplanacanal 5y agoYep. Bought a house last summer, in process of getting rid of the lawn. Less noise, less work, less chemicals. I mean what would I do with it? Play croquet?
- worik 5y agoI agree, but also have a lawn. I have a lot of space around the edges that have trees (fruit trees, nut trees and decorative native trees as) I pull out the plants I want to discourage (hemlock, stinging nettle, dock by the roots...) and other plants like ferns, flaxes, butter cups fill in the spaces.
- RobertMiller 5y agoMany people are required to have and mow lawns by their HOA or local government. For those people, the choice is mow, move, or eat some fines. Mowing may also be necessary if you live somewhere with a rodent problem, or particularly if you live somewhere with a rodent and snake problem. You don't want rats nesting right up against your house, nor vipers (attracted to the rats) nipping at your heels every time you go outside to check your mailbox. Of course there are outside-the-box solutions like surrounding your house with gravel.
- nemo44x 5y agoMy lawn would be so long if I mowed every other week. It would also be extremely bad for my lawn (fescue with KBG and rye). I mow about twice a week and keep my lawn at 3” - 4”. I like it a bit longer. If I let it grow for 2 weeks I’d be chopping off 50% or more of its length which puts the lawn under so much stress. It would be wide open for disease and it would actually be wasting water.
- joshu 5y agothis attitude, generally, is why we're never going to solve climate change
- teawrecks 5y ago"It seems they created lawns of unsustainable crops that allegedly had aesthetic appeal, and then proceeded to maintain these crops until they ran out resources and all went extinct." -some alien archeologist in 1000 years
- nemo44x 5y agoMy lawn has no to very little effect on that. If anything it’s probably a carbon sink. Mower is electric and I use organics.
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- jupp0r 5y agoIt would also cut the number of interrupted Zoom meetings due to noise pollution in half.
- westurner 5y agoAnother reason for textual chat meetings with URLs, #hashTags, @atTags, an agenda at the top, headings, and a prepared, accessible transcript!
- eyelidlessness 5y agoI’m not sure why this comment is grey. I know this wouldn’t necessarily work for everyone, but hey voice/video meetings don’t work well for some of us either. Folks, do what works for you and your team. Not everyone has to do the same thing.
- westurner 5y agoa #TeamPlaybook suggestion: add a copy-and-pasteable monospace markdown text template for #ThreeQuestions in the #TeamHandbook-specified chat #channel for #3qs: ## Date ### Agenda - 3qs ### @name Since, Before, Obstacles
- sdenton4 5y agoThe denoising in Google Meet is fantastic, btw.
- pwarner 5y agoZoom is actually good lately too in my recent experience
- dot_michael 5y agoI need to show this article to HOA.
- carlgreene 5y agoAlso increases the mosquito population :/
- binarymax 5y agoI noticed the last couple seasons that certain parts of the lawn by the curb were really active with pollinating bees. I stopped mowing that area, much to the chagrin of the city who warned me (there’s a blue law it must be shorter than 10 inches). So now, I don’t mow that part until they warn me, then I’ll trim it with a weed trimmer but leave some clusters here and there.
- chockchocschoir 5y agoI don't live in the US nor speak English natively, but are you referring to neighbors around you as "the city"? And what does "blue law" mean in this context, as it seems to mean "Blue laws, also known as Sunday laws, Sunday trade laws and Sunday closing laws, are laws restricting or banning certain activities on specified days, usually Sundays in the western world." but that doesn't fit the context. It can't actually be illegal for you to not cut your grass at your property right?
- binarymax 5y agoHard to believe, but it is real: https://www.cityofrochester.gov/article.aspx?id=8589936029 https://www.cityofrochester.gov/article.aspx?id=8589936029 I’ve lived in this house for 5 years now, and the first time it happened I couldn’t believe it myself. You are right in that I incorrectly referred to it as a “blue law”. But it is an ordinance.
- masklinn 5y ago> You are right in that I incorrectly referred to it as a “blue law”. But it is an ordinance. Mayhaps the mis-reference was due to most cool-season lawns being buegrasses?
- driverdan 5y agoIf you live in the city they will eventually come and mow it for you. The fines and fees will be added to your taxes. I had it happen to me when I owned a house in Rochester.
- 5y ago
- cinntaile 5y agoI don't understand why a lot of people have a lawn in the first place, most don't even use the lawn (besides mowing it on a regular basis hahaha)!
- vidarh 5y agoMy local London borough was short on cash last year, and while that was a shame, the fact that one of the things they cut down on was mowing the parks was fantastic. While I get some people want short grass in parks for e.g. ball games, I wish they'd keep leaving larger parts of the parks mowed less often - the parks had far more flowers and far more bees etc. than usual.
- masklinn 5y agoTBF one of the issues with long grass is they also favour ticks: ticks need a relatively wet environment, short grass prevent moisture retention which is an issue for all sorts of good critters... but also for ticks.
- goda90 5y agoThe problem with trying to reduce ticks and mosquitoes in unnatural ways is that we often harm the things that eat them too. Since ticks and mosquitoes feed on us and other larger animals, they're the first to rebound their population, while their predators take longer to come back to keep their numbers down.
- eveningcoffee 5y agoWe kept batches of flowering grass in our garden for bees.
- happytoexplain 5y agoMaybe I have slow growing grass. I mow every three weeks, and I feel like my neighbors do it every two. I thought weekly mowing was something mostly only seen in fictional portrayals of American fathers.
- sokoloff 5y agoIt depends on your climate and grass. In MA (where this study was), many cool season grasses can grow well over an inch per week in the mid-May and late-September windows. (Turf type tall fescue can grow over two inches per week in those windows.)
- ghaff 5y agoYeah. I have a biweekly mowing service in MA. It's barely adequate in late spring (and especially if they get behind because it's been rainy) and it's probably more frequent than needed during a dry late summer.
- rez9x 5y agoIf this year is anything like last year, I'll have to mow twice a week in the spring and then once a month in the summer. I mow at the second highest deck height though.
- nightski 5y agoOur cool season grass grows pretty fast and weekly is best. Plus it is better for the lawn to cut more frequently as it stresses the grass less. There are a lot of things you can do to help bee populations. I can't imagine how you mow the lawn is that large of a factor considering the other things you can do.
- social_quotient 5y agoIn Austin Texas. I mow weekly during the growing season. We previously had lawn service and it was every 2 weeks. Once lockdowns happened I took this over. Mainly out of habit and a need to get some exercise, so it’s every Saturday morning. I have kids so maybe there is some correlation :)
- sokoloff 5y agoRegardless of whether I mowed 0.5, 1.0, or 2.0 times per week, my lawn already has no “lawn flowers”, aka weeds. We keep some milkweed along one fence and have a bed of local wildflowers along the roadway and a vegetable garden for the bees, but this article is about increasing lawn flowers/weeds rather than directly about mowing frequency.
- worik 5y agoPerhaps you should introduce some? Flowering lawn weeds are such a wonderful addition to a lawn. The bees will be pleased, but you may need to get a hive nonce you have flowers established. From the complaints here about local by-laws you may need to have a stealth hive. Worth the effort.
- aimor 5y agoWould someone with access say how short they were mowing?
- thenerdhead 5y ago> Lawns were mowed from May through September in 2013 and 2014, using a Toro 19″ self-mulching push mower, (mowing height set at 6.35 cm). Grass clippings remained on the lawn. We assigned each yard to a mowing frequency regime: mowed every seven days (oneweek; n = 8 yards), 12–14 days (two-weeks; n = 7 yards), or 18–21 days (three-weeks; n = 8 yards) to represent the range of typical mowing behaviors (one to two weeks) to a more extreme frequency (three weeks; Robbins, 2007). Seven yards participated in both years of the study and thus these repeat yards were assigned a different mowing regime for the second year of the study. To ensure households adhered to the experimental restrictions (e.g., frequency and height of mowing), we provided a free lawn mowing service and mowed all participating lawns for the duration of the study > Summarized bee abundance and richness in relation to lawn mowing treatments were as follows: weekly mowing = 1425 bees representing 72 species, mowed every two weeks = 1903 bees representing 60 species, and mowed every three weeks = 1259 bees representing 62 species (Fig. 2, Appendix A1). Our rarefaction analysis reflected these overall abundance and richness values, showing lower bee richness in the two-week treatment
- candiddevmike 5y agoAlso stop using herbicide and plant some clover. My neighbors hate me but I (and the bees, bunnies, and other critters) love my almost white lawn in July. It smells great, and the clover keeps the grass healthy.
- nsxwolf 5y agoI consider clover to be a weed and go to great lengths to eradicate it. People underestimate how many people just want lawns of perfect, green, undifferentiated grass.
- goda90 5y agoWhat's the point? How does that enhance your life?
- coryrc 5y agoMight like going barefoot and not stepping on bees.
- drekk 5y agoYeah Americans not wanting to interact with pollinators is why they are disappearing from our environments. You could achieve the same thing with zero-scaping also, not like you need to waste water to create a pollinator-free zone. But then it wouldn't look the certain way you want, would it? That seems to be the main concern for Americans.
- slothtrop 5y agoAren't there plentiful suitable environments for bees outside of suburbia? I don't think the issue is lack of environment so much as herbicides and destructive habits.
- Schroedingersat 5y ago
- lazide 5y agoIt also increases angry letters from the HOA by 200%
- amanaplanacanal 5y agoI’ve tried to imagine buying a house with an attached HOA. I already have three layers of government, what does adding a fourth layer get me beside more busybodies telling me what (not) to do?
- karaterobot 5y agoNothing, but you can't get everything you want. It's fair to say the number of people who like HOAs is much lower than the number of people who are part of them. Having an HOA is a tradeoff many people are willing to make to get a home with other, more preferable qualities on a limited budget.
- lazide 5y agoPersonally I agree. Some areas it’s essentially impossible to get a home without an HOA however. Also, some folks like having a small army of busy bodies go after folks doing things that they don’t like.
- rcpt 5y agoSeems like existence of an HOA should decrease property values.
- umeshunni 5y agoIt directly and indirectly does - directly because it affects monthly payments and indirectly because it eliminates people who are opposed to HOAs
- driverdan 5y agoAnother reason for never buying a house with an HOA.
- agilob 5y ago
- kingkawn 5y agoNot mowing at all works even better
- thenerdhead 5y agohttps://www.fs.fed.us/nrs/pubs/jrnl/2018/nrs_2018_Lerman_001.pdf https://www.fs.fed.us/nrs/pubs/jrnl/2018/nrs_2018_Lerman_001... may suggest that is not the case. > Bee abundance differed among mowing treatments (p = 0.002), such that lawns mowed every two weeks had significantly more bees compared with the weekly and every three-week treatment (Fig. 4c, Tables 1, 2).
- kingkawn 5y agoBees aren’t the only insects. There may be spiders eating them. Habitat destruction leading to one species expanding doesn’t mean it’s beneficial to the ecosystem.
- popol12 5y agoLawn mowing is among the top most useless energy wasting human activities. It's noisy (of course nobody syncs with neighbours to mow so you can be sure to hear mowing noise every day), polluting, and so fucking useless.
- parenthesis 5y agoI understand lawn mowing, what I don't understand is people mowing tiny bits of grass with powered mowers. I use a push mower, about once a week (and I leave the clippings on the lawn). It's really enjoyable.
- chlorion 5y agoIn some areas you have no choice, otherwise your entire house will be swallowed by tall weeds and other stuff. It also can create safety issues with snakes and other creatures coming close to the house. I can't imagine living in a house totally surrounded by 4 foot high grass!
- nsxwolf 5y agoIt looks really nice, which is the point.
- devmunchies 5y agothen people take it too far and get turf lawns which look terrible IMO. its the uncanny too-much-plastic-surgery of lawns.
- ironmagma 5y agoNot noisy or polluting if you use an electric mower. Useless, kind of, although I appreciate not having a literal million insects floating into my house when I open the door (I live in FL) so it keeps those populations in check. Most of the macro bugs know the mower is coming and hop out of the way.
- smileysteve 5y ago> it keeps those populations in check This is an interesting word choice to use as pollinators approach endangerment. Akin to suggesting that deer hunting season should be extended until there are no longer any deer near roadways in FL.
- Phenomenit 5y agoOnly reason I mow is because it reduces the chance of the neighbors cat shitting in my yard. Otherwise I would have a beautiful Meadow.
- emj 5y agoCamera that can identify cats and a sprinkler.
- jeffbee 5y agoPet golden eagle.
- Phenomenit 5y agoThat's the dream, a anti-cat water turret.
- NateEag 5y agohttps://norris.org.au/cattack/ https://norris.org.au/cattack/
- quesera 5y ago...You'd have a beautiful meadow, which would attract wildlife, which would shit in your meadow. Go ahead and let the cat shit in your meadow, everyone's happier that way.
- chiefalchemist 5y agoLawn services work on a schedule. I'm not so sure that's as true as home owners who mow their own. I (DIY home owner) don't schedule, I mow on demand. That said, if the lawn gets too long our electric mower struggles. Finally, wouldn't longer grass also be a better environment for ticks? Don't get me wrong, bees are important. But grass length has been a constant, and while this information is helpful it's not doing much to address root cause (without that its influence could get worse).
- mmcgaha 5y agoSweet, now I can say that I am doing it for mother earth instead of admitting that I am too lazy to do it every weekend.
- giantg2 5y ago"Mowing less frequently [than 3 weeks] is practical," Not in all areas. Some grasses grow much more quickly, especially in warmer areas. Many areas require a lower mow to inhibit mosquito reproduction. Every 2 weeks tends to work well for my lawn.
- ozarkerD 5y agoI’m curious if this is due more to climate or species of grass in an area.
- worik 5y agoI need to mow my lawn every two weeks in summer (each week would be good too) I do not mow in in the winter months, at all. Seasonal.
- worik 5y agoMosquitos? They require stagnant water. Do people in power worry that rubbish in the lawn will harbour water? (I do not have mosquitos where I live)
- thegginthesky 5y agoDepends on the location. Southern states in the US and many countries in Latin America have strict rules against rubble that accumulates still water, and you can even get fined if you have a pool and don't keep it clean and treated. West Nile virus and Dengue virus are serious health hazards transmitted by mosquitoes, and many places try to contain it.
- honksillet 5y agoIn mosquito environments limiting lawn height definitely helps.
- worik 5y agoI do not doubt you. But I would like to know why?
- oxfordmale 5y agoI am based in the UK and I cut the "grass" every 6 weeks in the spring and summer. I have severe hay fever and I only mow the grass after a good bout of rain, otherwise I get quite a severe reaction. My neighbor does religiously mow every week in the spring and summer season. I have found my green carpet to be a lot more drought resistant than my neighbours perfect lawn, and the biodiversity attracts more bees, toads and other insects. However, I appreciate many would class the biodiversity as weeds (moss, clover dandelion, daisies).
- thenerdhead 5y agoI'm actually building a DIY lawncare app right now. One of the features is having the right frequency of mowing depending on how much rain & fertilizer product plan you follow. It would mean a lot to me if you took a quick survey so I could understand if there's value in the idea: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/XF8RZJF https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/XF8RZJF
- jmull 5y agoBees love me. My neighbors don't! :)
- john61 5y agoLast year I mowed only 2 or 3 times in the whole year because my automower died and I wanted to try what happens. The increase in insects and birds was incredible. I therefore do not repair or replace the mower. Instead I only regularly mow paths through the garden so I can walk through it and a "central place" where I really need and use low grass. Only 2 or 3 times a year I mow all of the garden with the scythe.
- simpthrown8id 5y agoPersonally, I'd love to just get rid of most or at least part of my lawn and replace with growing food, like Rob Greenfield. anyone interested in turning their lawn into a food growing yard, should check out his work: https://www.robgreenfield.org/ https://www.robgreenfield.org/
- jelliclesfarm 5y agoWe’d have bee abundance if there are less lawns.
- lightlyused 5y agoI really dislike mowing in general, so mow as little as possible. Yes, I have the worst looking lawn on the block, but I also now have less grass and more diversity in "weedy" plants. My quote is "if I wanted to be a land lord, I would move to England" when asked about my lawn.
- AnotherGoodName 5y agoOne thing i personally noticed and wanted to ask someone who might know (perhaps they are reading this) Does the abundance of color in the modern world harm bees in any way? I ask this because I've seen bees repeatedly fly into modern packaging, signage and bright clothing. I can imagine that the wasted energy flying into a sign that is as colorful as a flower harms bees. But I'm not sure if there's studies on this or if it is even a big deal. So opportunistically asking here in this semi related thread to see if others have thought about this.
- serverlessmom 5y agoI have always wanted to allow more lawn growth to create room for insect and animals to thrive, and to replace the invasive grasses that are so common in my state with local clover and creeping thyme ground cover but I have been surprised at the level of resistance this has been met with by landlords and nosy neighbors. Keeping a "neat and tidy" yard is one of those weird cultural values in the US that was born from misguided beliefs about patriotism and is rooted in classist ideas. Even the idea of dandelions being "weeds" is ridiculous as the dandelion is an incredibly useful plant that can be used in a variety of circumstances. I really suggest that anyone interested in these topics check out a book called Lawn People How Grasses, Weeds, and Chemicals Make Us Who We Are. https://tupress.temple.edu/book/0141 https://tupress.temple.edu/book/0141
- pfdietz 5y agoCreeping thyme is not native to North America.
- marmakoide 5y agoThe previous owner of my house was maintening a picture perfect green. With the kids and the jobs, I didn't want to follow that practice. Too much time for a soil not made for this, lots of fertilizer, various chemicals... I fix the dead patches every spring and autumn with clover seeds and compost made from grass clippings, egg shells and vegetables/fruits peels. Zero fertilizer or weed killers, I remove by hand the weeds I don't like once in a while. I rake the garden twice a year to keep moss under control. 5 years later, our garden no longer looks like a green, but a prairie with the usual local plants. Since 2 years poppies are colonizing the most sun exposed parts, with spectacular blooms we are eagerly waiting for. Worms, larvae, slugs and snails are plenty, so birds are always at work foraging. Whatever dies during the hottest weeks regenerates in autumn. Plenty of bees are foraging the clovers and bindweed flowers. It's looks nice, it's alive, it's much less work and money to maintain, it's self regenerating.
- blkhp19 5y agoWould love to see a couple of photos of what’s possible! Any maybe some info about where you’re located?
- beaconstudios 5y agoThat's awesome - natural and native ecosystems are what we should be aiming for, not sterile lawns. It's better for the environment and for biodiversity, lower maintainence, and you get the benefits of an ecosystem like surprise blooms. I don't know if you're aware of this (you probably are but I'm posting it for readers anyway) but there's a movement for doing this in many aspects of our nature management called permaculture. It's pretty cool!
- westurner 5y agoRewilding (conservation biology) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rewilding_(conservation_biology) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rewilding_(conservation_biolog... Climate change mitigation effects of rewilding > Carbon sinks and removal: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_mitigation#Carbon_sinks_and_removal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_mitigation#Carb... Permaculture : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permaculture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permaculture
- seba_dos1 5y agoWait, what? Weekly mowing? What the hell? Who does that? This sounds absolutely disastrous for grass and its ecosystem. I don't see a reason to mow more than a few times per year.
- jsnodlin 5y ago
- slothtrop 5y agoThe grass in Ontario for instance grows very fast. Plus, weeds. Most people here cut weekly to keep it trim. They're also usually gas-powered.
- seba_dos1 5y agoBut what does "very fast" mean? Other comments are talking about something like 15 cm in a month. That's not a lot.
- slothtrop 5y agoIn weeks with more rainfall it can 5-7 cm. If you skip it, then by the next week it looks like jungle / prairie. The only way to avoid frequently cutting grass and not having your lawn look unkempt is not to have grass. Either replace with some other short green or keep a neat garden with nothing else. Culturally people just don't do that. But you'd sooner see a trend shift towards alternatives than "just don't cut as often".
- seba_dos1 5y agoI have grass in lawn and in my experience, when it's about 10-15 cm tall it looks and feels the best. When it gets longer than that it's good to cut commonly used paths. Full mowing is good to do at spring and autumn, because doing it in summer tends to make it dry up. This way I use no fertilizers, no extensive watering, no weekly mowing and have a nice, green, relaxing and living lawn.
- CalRobert 5y agoI let my 3 acres go fallow for the last few years (half an acre I mow so my kids can play and not come out covered in ticks). I wondered if it was helping a lot until I took a few walks in the grass and nesting birds were startled by my presence (I let them be after I knew where they were!). I don't think they'd had the chance to nest there when it was being cut for silage.
- samstave 5y agoCHECK THIS OUT! This is happening in my front yard literally as I type this! The colony in my tree is electing a new Queen. Last week half the colony left with the old queen - and a bee-keeper noticed they were all bunched up in the yard and brought a hive and harvested them off the lawn. (Ill ad pics of that later) I havent needed to mow the lawn in months, and this literally just happened in the last 30 mins as I returned to costco... Listen with audio they are swarming like mad! https://imgur.com/gallery/2nnZBy4 https://imgur.com/gallery/2nnZBy4 --- What was crazy is I read this article this AM before heading to errands, and then I came home to this! And I was recognizing the hive was there, and I was recognizing I havent mowed in months! and I planted a crap-ton of bee friendly stuff in the yard last summer... https://i.imgur.com/Io1LASO.jpeg https://i.imgur.com/Io1LASO.jpeg https://imgur.com/gallery/ltjjtMd https://imgur.com/gallery/ltjjtMd
- jeh993 5y agoIn my neighborhood, green lawns are frowned upon and most yards are left unmowed for the duration of the summer. Some are mowed infrequently for insurance reasons. Others are mowed frequently. It's grown on me and now I find the diverse array of wildflowers and grasses to a mowed yard. As a result, I've progressively become more curious about the results of different lawn maintenance strategies. Here what I've observed: (1) Many plants seem to require their seeds to stay on the plant until late autumn to effectively reproduce. Mowing, even if only in the late summer, seems to disrupt the overall plant diversity. Unmowed lawns have the most diversity. (2) Invasive plant species thrive because they are able to colonize recently disturbed soil most quickly, crowding out other species. They are incredibly effective at colonizing infrequently mowed yards. The unmowed yards have the least number of invasive plants. (3) Native species seems to be far more drought resistant than grass. They maintain a green appearance long after the grass has turned brown. (4) Bees are far more plentiful around large flowering plants which have been allowed to grow in unmowed yards than the clover found in infrequently mowed yards.