While finding a four leafed clover might bring you the luck of the Irish, large patches of clover in your lawn could be considered an eyesore, especially if they’re messing with your landscaping ideas for front yard. Clover can also attract bees to pollinate it, and if you have kids running around barefoot, they could accidentally step on a bee and get stung Luckily, getting rid of clover in grass isn’t particularly hard. In fact, killing clover in lawns can be done organically and without the help of any herbicides that could harm your grass if sprayed incorrectly.
Clover Basics (And How to Prevent It)
If you have clover in your lawn, odds are that it is because you have low nitrogen levels in the soil. Clover outperforms grass when nitrogen in the soil is low. The good news is that clover then takes the nitrogen from the air and puts it into the soil, helping the grass eventually grow back bigger and thicker.
This also means that small patches of clover is actually a good thing for your lawn and can help it to stay green and healthy. But, if you get big patches of it or are intent on a perfectly manicured lawn, regular feeding and watering should prevent any clover from forming. You can use professional lawn fertilizers (see: When Should I Fertilize My Lawn?)to do this or you can simply mulch your grass (see our best walk behind lawn mowers that have this function) and put it back down on your lawn. This should break down and provide the nitrogen that the grass needs to grow healthy and strong.
How to Get Rid of Clover in Lawn Organically
Because clover competes for grass when nitrogen is low, the easiest solution for how to kill clover in grass is allowing the clover to do its job and making the conditions right for the grass to eventually choke it out. Best of all, this is easy to do and won’t require any extra work on your part. Simply do these two things:
- Mulch your clippings back into your lawn to provide extra nitrogen for the grass.
- Mow your grass higher. Grass grows higher than clover, so mow your grass higher, putting the clover in the shade. Mow it shorter than the clover flowers though so that they don’t get a chance to seed and reproduce.
How to Kill Clover in My Lawn Today
If you want to get rid of your clover right now and don’t want to wait, you can also weed it out of your lawn yourself. Removing clover from lawn is easy because the roots aren’t deep like many weeds, but it should be done in the spring and fall when grass grows the fastest. You also need to take care to solve the original problem of low nutrients in the soil! This is also most useful for small patches where it won’t take up too much of your time. To kill clover in lawn today:
- Water the lawn to loosen the grip the clover’s roots have on your soil.
- Wait a few hours for the water to soak in.
- Use a weeder like the best-selling Fiskars 7870 Uproot Lawn & Garden Weeder to remove the clover by hand.
- Once the clover is removed place good mulch and grass seed down like the Scotts 14923 PatchMaster Grass Seed/Mulch Mix so that your grass grows back greener and healthier than ever!
How to Get Rid of Clover in Grass Chemically
You can also always decide to get rid of clover with herbicides and clover weed killers such as Ortho Weed-B-Gon Chickweed, Clover, And Oxalis Killer. Make sure to buy herbicides for broadleaf plants (like dandelions) so that it won’t harm your grass. While it will get rid of the clover quickly, it won’t necessarily solve the problem that caused the clover in the first place. Make sure that you also continue to feed and seed your lawn to prevent the clover from coming back.
These solutions for how to get rid of clover in lawn will help you solve your clover problem, but just remember that clover is indicative of a poorly fed lawn in the first place. To keep clover out of your lawn, make sure that you continue aerating your lawn, professionally fertilizing it, and also much up your lawn clippings to keep it healthy!