Lawn

Answers to your questions: getting rid of white clover in a lawn? Really?

Question

I’d like to know how to get rid of white clover in a lawn. I have a large lawn and it’s overgrown with clover. I’ve been told it’s due to a lack of nitrogen. Is this true and what can I do to get my old lawn back?

Photo: schulzie/Getty Images.

Answer

For as long as there have been lawns, white clover has always been part of the most beautiful lawns in the world, along with grasses. All turf mixtures contained a proportion of white clover seeds, whose evergreen foliage was admired despite the worst droughts; the way it supplied the grass with nitrogen, which largely eliminated the need for fertilization; its relatively modest growth, which reduced the need for mowing; its excellent resistance to bad weather and trampling; and its magnificent white flowers, which decorated the vast carpet of green considered too monotonous at the time. No one would have thought to call it a weed.

Not Always a Weed

Then came the 1950s, when multinational chemical producers faced a dilemma: they were looking for a product to kill weeds in the lawn without killing the lawn itself, but without success. They did have products that killed broadleaf plants while sparing narrow-leaved grasses, but inevitably they also killed clover. So what was to be done? These companies began a multimillion-dollar advertising campaign to convince homeowners that white clover was a weed that had to be destroyed. Then they could sell their herbicides at will. They were so successful in their propaganda that most people still believe that clover is a weed when it grows in grass.

Photo: eugenesergeev/Getty Images.

Artificially Kept on Life Support

You’ve probably guessed that I’m going to suggest that you resist the still-popular trend of lawns kept artificially alive by pesticides, learn that a happy, healthy lawn contains a mixture of plants and not just grasses, and don’t try to destroy the clover in your lawn. If you don’t agree with me, there are still herbicides for lawns, but fewer and fewer municipalities allow their sale or use without a permit.

Gradually, despite the protests of businesses who have made millions on the backs of naive gardeners, these herbicides will be withdrawn from the market. Remember, if the government withdraws a product from the market, it’s because it’s not very good for your health… or that of the planet. So if you’re willing to risk your health, that of your children and your neighbors, to have an artificial-looking lawn, go ahead and spread some of those toxic products called herbicides.

The only logical way to suppress clover in the lawn would be to get down on all fours and pull them out plant by plant.

And by the way, whoever told you that clover grows in grass because it lacks nitrogen probably just wants to sell you more fertilizer. Clover grows in both rich and poor soils.


Larry Hodgson published thousands of articles and 65 books over the course of his career, in both French and English. His son, Mathieu, has made it his mission to make his father’s writings accessible to the public. This text was originally published in Le Soleil.

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Garden writer and blogger, author of 65 gardening books, lecturer and communicator, the Laidback Gardener, Larry Hodgson, passed away in October 2022. Known for his great generosity, his thoroughness and his sense of humor, he reached several generations of amateur and professional gardeners over his 40-year career. Thanks to his son, Mathieu Hodgson, and a team of contributors, laidbackgardener.blog will continue its mission of demystifying gardening and making it more accessible to all.

2 comments on “Answers to your questions: getting rid of white clover in a lawn? Really?

  1. Mary discuillo

    Thank you so much for helping stop out herbicides. I loved your article so much. There is nothing wrong with clover And the bees love it.

  2. Barbara Berkley

    I love clover in my yard!

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