Clover Lawn Mix
For anyone who wants a green lawn with less feeding, less watering and something for the bees, and does not mind it looking informal.
A clover lawn mix blends fescues and often a little ryegrass with white clover, usually one of the small leaved microclover selections. The clover fixes its own nitrogen from the air and feeds the grass around it, stays green through a dry spell when grass has gone straw coloured, and flowers for bees if you let it. It is the most genuinely low-maintenance lawn you can sow in Ireland, at the price of a looser, less uniform look.
Quick facts
- Botanical name
- Lolium perenne, Festuca rubra, Poa pratensis
- Type
- Open pollinated
- Category
- Clover and grass pollinator mix
- Difficulty
- Easy, good first crop
- Hardiness
- Hardy, takes Irish frost
- In Ireland
- Grows outdoors unprotected
- Germination
- 7 to 21 days at 8 to 25C
- Sowing rate
- 35g per square metre
- Position
- Full sun
- Mow and feed
- March to October
Sowing and harvest calendar for Clover Lawn Mix
Months shaded below are the reliable windows for Irish conditions.
Where to buy Clover Lawn Mix grass seed in Ireland
Irish suppliers that stock this, so postage stays domestic and seed arrives in time to sow. These are plain links, not paid placements.
Garden centres and mixed retailers
- Johnstown Garden Centre Irish A proper lawn seed category, including a shade mix Third generation family business near Naas with the widest branded range, though popular varieties sell out by midsummer. Visit Johnstown Garden Centre , Co. Kildare
- Woodie's Widest range including two shade mixes, mixed in with feeds Dublin headquartered chain, part of Grafton Group. Cheapest per packet and the only nationwide click and collect option. Visit Woodie's
Why it suits Ireland
Clover is the plant Irish farming was built on before bagged nitrogen arrived, and it does the same job in a lawn. In a country where fertiliser run-off into rivers is a live issue, a lawn that feeds itself is a real argument rather than a marketing one.
It also solves the one Irish lawn problem that gets worse rather than better: the dry spell. Our summers are wet on average but they arrive in a pattern of long dull damp weeks and then a fortnight of drought, and shallow rooted lawn grass goes brown quickly in the dry fortnight. Clover roots deeper and stays green through it, so a clover lawn is the one that looks fine in a July when everyone else’s is straw.
The pollinator case is straightforward. White clover is one of the most valuable and easily grown forage plants for Irish bumblebees, and the All-Ireland Pollinator Plan specifically recommends reduced mowing on lawns to let it flower. A clover lawn does more for pollinators than a wildflower packet scattered on unprepared ground, and it actually survives.
The trade-off is appearance and wear. It is not uniform, it stains clothes more than grass, and heavy traffic on wet ground damages it more than it does ryegrass.
Sowing and growing notes
Clover needs warmer soil than grass, around 10C and rising, so sow in May or from late August into September. An early April sowing usually means the grass comes up and the clover does not.
Sow the blend at the normal rate of 35g per square metre. If you are adding clover to an existing lawn instead, scarify hard first to open the surface, then broadcast clover seed alone at roughly 1 to 2g per square metre, which looks like almost nothing and is correct. Clover seed is tiny and must sit on the surface with good soil contact, not be buried.
Mow at 40mm or higher. Scalping favours grass over clover and defeats the purpose.
Never apply a feed and weed, a selective lawn herbicide or a moss killer containing a broadleaf weedkiller. All of them kill clover, and this is the most common way a clover lawn is accidentally destroyed a year after sowing.
Expect the clover to look thin in its first winter and to come back strongly from May onwards. It is a perennial and it takes a full season to establish its share of the sward.
Common questions
What is the difference between microclover and ordinary white clover?
Microclover is white clover selected for much smaller leaves and a lower, less clumping habit, so it knits through the grass rather than forming obvious patches. Ordinary white clover works too and is cheaper, but it grows in distinct clumps and looks noticeably patchier in a mown lawn. Both fix nitrogen equally well. Under regular mowing microclover leaves get smaller still, which is why a mown microclover lawn reads as green rather than as clover.
Will the bees sting the children?
This is the question that decides it for most families. Clover flowers attract honeybees and bumblebees, and barefoot children plus flowering clover occasionally means a sting. The practical compromise is to mow the flowers off during the weeks the lawn gets most use and leave it to flower at other times, or to leave a clover area at the edge of the garden and keep the play area as a grass mix. Cutting every four to six weeks through summer is the short flowering meadow approach set out in the All-Ireland Pollinator Plan's garden guidance, and it is the interval that actually lets clover reach flower between cuts. Mowing every three weeks keeps the lawn tidier but takes most of the flowers off before the bees get them.
Do I still need to feed a clover lawn?
Largely no, and that is the point of it. Clover takes nitrogen from the air through bacteria in its root nodules and releases it to the grass around it, so a clover lawn stays green without the spring nitrogen feed a conventional lawn needs. What you cannot do is use a selective lawn weedkiller or a feed and weed product, because they kill clover. If you want a clover lawn you are committing to hand weeding the dandelions.
More grass seed mixes to consider
General Purpose Lawn Mix
Open pollinated / Hard-wearing family mix
The right mix for nine out of ten Irish gardens, and the only sensible choice if children or a dog use the lawn.
Growing notes and stockistsShade Tolerant Lawn Mix
Open pollinated / Shade mix
For dappled shade under deciduous trees and north facing gardens, provided you accept it will never be as thick as a lawn in sun.
Growing notes and stockistsLuxury Fine Lawn Mix
Open pollinated / Ornamental fine fescue and bent mix
For a front lawn nobody plays on, where you want the striped ornamental look and will do the work to keep it.
Growing notes and stockists