Garden Rehab

By the end of July, the Dutch White Clover had come in and was looking green and lovely (especially compared to the sparse microclover we tried earlier ). We mowed it occasionally, and didn't water at all after it was established. Racoons and squirrels continued to regularly dig through the clover which did create some bald spots, but overall it has held up much better than the grass we replaced. Glorious green clover at the end of July According Zsa Zsa, one of life's great pleasures is lounging if sun-dappled clover, feeling a gentle breeze through one's fur... she might be on to something...

After our first attempt to seed the lawn with microclover were less than successful, I decided to switch to standard Dutch White Clover seed. The OSC website states , it is "robust, adaptive, drought resistant and somewhat shade tolerant", so it should have no trouble with the clay in our yard. Dutch White Clover seed is also significantly less expensive than microclover seed. For comparison, Dutch White Clover is $11.00/500 grams which works out to $0.55/25grams. Microclover is $8.95/25 g, about 16 times more.  I also decided to add some Sweet Alyssum to the lawn after reading about Fleur de Lawn , an environmentally friendly flowering lawn mix developed with Oregon State University. Along with a number of other species, they included Sweet Alyssum in their mix. To jump start things, I planted 32 small Alyssum plants along the walkway where the clover was having trouble getting started. July 1, 2017 - Dutch White Clover and Sweet Alyssum. The clover see...

I admit that I bought into the marketing for microclover . It seemed like polite, well-mannered clover.  At first, everything seemed fine. The clover came up, it was adorable. May 30, 2017 - clover sprouts May 30, 2017 - clover shoots Being cute and well behaved will only get you so far in the real world though. After several weeks, and 2 rounds of seeding, the clover lawn was looking sparse and increasingly full of weeds. June 20, 2017 June 20, 2017 In fairness to microclover, another problem was that we were not sure of the seeding rate. The OSC seeding package states that the seeding rate is 25 g/ 52 m2. We spread two packages and this should have been enough for the size of our yard. However, this seeding rate is likely for over-seeding a lawn (mixing clover in with existing grass) rather than starting a clover lawn from scratch. West Coast Seeds' s eeding calculator for microclover  provides a significantly higher seeding rate of 50g for ...

We planned this day for weeks, getting ready to replace our lawn with clover and bring native plant species into our garden. On April 14, 2017 - the first really warm day of spring - we took the plunge. We started with a patchy weed-filled grass lawn and a lonely tree. Zsa Zsa provided careful supervision of the project to ensure it met the highest standards. Morning of April 14, 2017 Our first task was to move the tree from its awkward location slightly off-centre (just enough off-centre to REALLY bug Mark) to the corner of the garden. The new location will allow us to create a more cohesive garden design.  Unexpectedly long roots. Proud of our accomplishments. And here is the tree in its new home, along with the beginnings of our cedar mulch path ... Two and half months later, the tree has settled in and seems to have come through the move with no problems. July 1 - healthy tree, post-move.