3 ms·

I'm only 1 season in, but clover is nice. A part of the grass thing I think is the fairly recent desire to have a pure Fescue/Bermuda/etc grass lawn. I don't

by ssmoot 12y ago

I'm only 1 season in, but clover is nice. A part of the grass thing I think is the fairly recent desire to have a pure Fescue/Bermuda/etc grass lawn. I don't remember why, but a few months ago it popped into my head: You know, when I was a kid in Harlingen, there was clover everywhere. We'd pick a bit out of lawns as we roamed the neighborhood and chew on it. It's been decades since I've seen a neighborhood like that... So I bought some clover seed and spread it around. Within just a couple weeks (4 or 5 days of daily watering at the outset to establish it) it was crazy green, spread through most of the lawn, while not being disruptive to the grass. The grass actually seems to be benefitting. It is chocking out weeds OTOH, so win win win. Overall my lawn is a whole lot brighter/greener/more-alive and it doesn't take more than the twice weekly watering schedule allowed by DFW's water conservation ordinances. Now at the height of summer my lawn looks better than most of my neighbors and unlike the retirees' manicured lawns I'm not out there watering with a hose (a loophole the water conservation ordinance allows to please the demographic) daily. I just thought it was noteworthy that there's a middle-ground between green painted gravel like Sun City, AZ, and golf-course lawns.

positr0n 12y ago
> watering with a hose (a loophole...) Are you sure that's a loophole? I've seen statistics that hand watering and drip irrigation systems are much less wasteful than sprinklers. And sprinklers are the only thing that are banned to twice-weekly in my region of DFW at least.
- ssmoot 12y ago
  I think drip is in a different category. I wouldn't argue your overall point, but my point is that it's not like those neighbors don't run their sprinkler systems. They're supplementing with hand watering. Not substituting. And who has time for that except empty-nesters? Don't get me wrong. I love my neighbors. Living in the city has been an entirely different experience for me coming from the suburbs. There's an actual feeling of community here I never experienced out there. Maybe it's unfair, but I just expect City Hall would have a hard time going to usage based billing instead.
tanzam75 12y ago
> I don't remember why, but a few months ago it popped into my head: You know, when I was a kid in Harlingen, there was clover everywhere. We'd pick a bit out of lawns as we roamed the neighborhood and chew on it. It's been decades since I've seen a neighborhood like that... Clover was not considered a weed until the 1950s, when 2,4-D became the herbicide of choice. Before then, seed companies intentionally added clover into their grass seed mixes. Clover will grow in nitrogen-deficient soil because it can fix nitrogen from the atmosphere. Grass cannot. If you wanted to avoid bare patches on your lawn, you needed the clover. For example, the book Planting and Care of Lawns (1931) recommends planting lawns north of 35 N latitude with a mixture containing 5% clover: http://books.google.com/books?id=_vL1mNCfVDAC&pg=PA8 http://books.google.com/books?id=_vL1mNCfVDAC&pg=PA8 For the greater part of region 1 the following mixture has proved quite satisfactory: Kentucky bluegrass 17 parts, redtop 2 parts, white clover 1 part by weight. Once 2,4-D became popular, anything that it killed became regarded as a weed. This included clover, so clover became a weed.

by ssmoot 12y ago

positr0n 12y ago

> watering with a hose (a loophole...) Are you sure that's a loophole? I've seen statistics that hand watering and drip irrigation systems are much less wasteful than sprinklers. And sprinklers are the only thing that are banned to twice-weekly in my region of DFW at least.

ssmoot 12y ago
I think drip is in a different category. I wouldn't argue your overall point, but my point is that it's not like those neighbors don't run their sprinkler systems. They're supplementing with hand watering. Not substituting. And who has time for that except empty-nesters? Don't get me wrong. I love my neighbors. Living in the city has been an entirely different experience for me coming from the suburbs. There's an actual feeling of community here I never experienced out there. Maybe it's unfair, but I just expect City Hall would have a hard time going to usage based billing instead.

tanzam75 12y ago

> I don't remember why, but a few months ago it popped into my head: You know, when I was a kid in Harlingen, there was clover everywhere. We'd pick a bit out of lawns as we roamed the neighborhood and chew on it. It's been decades since I've seen a neighborhood like that... Clover was not considered a weed until the 1950s, when 2,4-D became the herbicide of choice. Before then, seed companies intentionally added clover into their grass seed mixes. Clover will grow in nitrogen-deficient soil because it can fix nitrogen from the atmosphere. Grass cannot. If you wanted to avoid bare patches on your lawn, you needed the clover. For example, the book Planting and Care of Lawns (1931) recommends planting lawns north of 35 N latitude with a mixture containing 5% clover: http://books.google.com/books?id=_vL1mNCfVDAC&pg=PA8 http://books.google.com/books?id=_vL1mNCfVDAC&pg=PA8 For the greater part of region 1 the following mixture has proved quite satisfactory: Kentucky bluegrass 17 parts, redtop 2 parts, white clover 1 part by weight. Once 2,4-D became popular, anything that it killed became regarded as a weed. This included clover, so clover became a weed.