There are new proponents purporting the planting of lawn with only clover rather than grass. The primary advantage comes in the fact that no mowing is needed.
Methods of lawn care include Angelkeep’s push-mowing method, most common the homeowner’s riding mower, or hiring the service by those physically unable homeowners or those rich enough for that option. The elimination of mowing grass has huge advantages physically and financially.
Who knew the day would come when gasoline miles-per-gallon would be a consideration for the lawn?
Angelkeep typically finds the first thrill of owning a lawn rife with clover during late April or early May when the first of many annual four-leaf-clovers either gets picked or photographed. Lucky clovers served as a previous topic for Angelkeep Journals. That history and accountability will not be repeated today.
Angelkeep clover bloom, also mentioned in retro columns, becomes a summer favorite of local honeybees. Lovely wife Gwen loves her honey (the food variety, and hopefully the spouse variety as well.) It’s another reason to allow clover to grow in the Angelkeep lawn. Purple and white blooms appear in various sizes.
Did you know sweet clover has Wells County history?
Evan L. Chalfant wrote a 1905 letter to the editor of the Bluffton Chronicle suggesting errors were printed in an earlier issue. He wrote his letter, “not particularly in defense of sweet clover, but to state the facts as I have learned them.”
Chalfant claimed sweet clover had been in the neighborhood for over 30 years (back to 1875) and refuted calling it a “pest.” He claimed it lived only two years. His horses, cattle, sheep, hogs and chickens ate it happily when pastured “and knock down my fences to reach for that along the roadside.”
“The smallest bee with the shortest bill easily reaches the honey. The honey is of a rich golden color and of a very pleasant flavor.” Gwen knows all about this fact.
“Sweet clover is a twin sister to alfalfa which it resembles closely in looks, habits of growth, richness as food, nitrogen-gathering bacteria, and soil enriching qualities. We have no better plant in this state for enriching poor soil. Sweet clover seed is heavy and will not blow about like thistle seed and so it never spreads rapidly. It gives no trouble whatever in fields that are pastured nor on land where a rotation of crops is followed. If every roadside in our country were lined with sweet clover it would cause less damage than is now caused by the yellow mustard growing on so many farms.”
Angelkeep’s lawn supports a menagerie of wild animals pasturing, such as bunnies, deer, muskrats (although they prefer aquatic plants,) and this column’s writer who routinely includes dandelion and other “weeds” in a breakfast stir fry or omelet.
The Chronicle in 1891 advised a pasture mix of clover, timothy, redtop, blue grass, fescue, and orchard grass. Angelkeep has some of those but includes crabgrass, plantain, violets, dandelion, purslane, buttercup, quack grass, creeping Charlie, bindweed, purple deadnettle, just to mention but a few. Can’t have too much purple deadnettle for those breakfast meals.
Angelkeep’s pokeweed is interesting but certainly not in the food group, not even spread with honey. Spotted jewelweed, same.
The 1891 news reported “Pigs fed in clover either in the fields or in the pen, are the best pork producers.” That might relate to the occasional groundhog spotted on the back lawn of Angelkeep. Truth be known, this columnist has eaten smoked groundhog. Tastes like smoked ham.
In 1885, the Chronicle suggested one way to make bureau drawers “odorous” came in the use of sweet clover or orris root. Angelkeep has plenty of sweet clover and a smaller supply of orris root, it being the underground portion of tall bearded irises.
Angelkeep’s lawn is not a contemporary full-clover expanse, nor the golf fairway look so many homeowners aspire to. It’s a happy little yard supporting local critters and a columnist’s appreciation of some free breakfast greens.
Mr. Daugherty is a Wells County resident who, along with his wife Gwen, enjoy their backyard and have named it “Angelkeep.”
