Rules for planting and growing clover on the lawn
Arrangement of the territory around the house is an important component of summer cottage life, because the appearance of the site is the first thing that its visitors pay attention to. A classic green lawn is often planted, a good alternative to which would be clover planting. A lawn like this will look natural, enchanting with thousands of globular flowers that immediately catch the eye due to their pleasant appearance.
Clover varieties
For good crop growth on the site, you need to know what types of plants are and which ones are best suited for growing in your area. You can choose plants with white, red, yellow, pink flowers. There are about 300 types of clover in the world, but no more than 70 of them can be counted in the CIS countries.
You can plant a shamrock (another name for a culture) on lawns; alpine slides and rockeries are decorated with it. Many decorative varieties have been created. Lawns are formed mainly by a perennial with a white flower. The plant is undemanding to care for, lush, and after complete mowing, the lawn will not deteriorate from the unpleasant appearance of bare stems.
Pink clover is beautiful, but this variety requires care. It is common in the Caucasus, the Crimean peninsula. Its leaves are ovoid. The acidity of the soil is not important for him, the flowering period is from June to September. The reddish shamrock is listed in the Red Book. Its bushes reach a height of 60 cm, the inflorescences are elongated. Different varieties bloom at different times, but most often the plant will be able to please the owners with fluffy balls 2 times per season.
Planting clover
After a plant variety has been selected, its correct planting on the site is required. In natural conditions, there is no care, but the culture feels good without weeding and feeding. The owners of the site will not be burdened either, because the shamrock is very tenacious and unpretentious. To get an even green carpet, the landing site should be sunny, and partial shade will do. If cereals used to grow on the site, this will have a good effect on the growth of the trefoil.
Reproduction takes place using seeds. You should take them from the second year of life or use store ones. You can divide large bushes of the plant, but they take root in new places poorly.
So what is the landing algorithm?
- It is required to dig up the ground, remove weeds, level.
- 1 m2 you need about 300 seeds. Beforehand, they should be soaked in water for an hour. For convenience, you can mix seeds with soil in a suitable container, then distribute over the territory.
- Seeds should be covered with a thin layer of earth, no more than 1 cm.
- The plot is watered from a hose with a low pressure. It is best to use the nozzle to get a light rain. The soil should be moist for about a week after planting to properly strengthen the plant in the ground. It is not recommended to walk on a fresh lawn, otherwise the shamrock may grow worse in some places or the sprouts will not appear at all.
The first shoots should appear in 2 weeks.
Advice
It is not worth scattering the seeds with your hands, because it will not be possible to do this evenly, a marriage in work will be noticeable. There is no need to delay planting, because the seeds need to take root before the onset of the cold season.
The shamrock bloom can only be seen next year. But it is important to provide proper care right away, because young shoots are most vulnerable.
Plant care
An important condition for the normal growth of any crop is watering. It doesn't matter what type of plant is planted on the site. A long absence of water will negatively affect the appearance of the trefoil area.Waterlogging will also be detrimental, although some varieties do not pay much attention to high moisture content.
The pink shamrock, like the white one, can grow even in the immediate vicinity of groundwater. Care, which includes watering the plant and mowing the grown stems, should in any case be regular. Once a week, not more often, it should be nourished. You don't need to get carried away with fertilizers, because the shamrock is able to release nitrogen itself.
Seeds should be harvested from large brown heads. Then they are dried for about a week in indirect sunlight and stored in a place closed from access to fresh oxygen until planting. Don't worry if other crops grow around the plant. Clover gets along well with outsiders. In addition, it can withstand trampling well, which means that you should not worry and limit the children - let them walk right on the site. The shamrock will not lose its beauty when the temperature drops.
You need to cut the plant as it grows, and care when planting on the site is reduced only to watering. After trimmer treatment, the culture recovers very quickly and blooms even more. The site should look neat, you should not give clover to grow. If sprouts appear in nearby areas, it will be difficult to get rid of annoying grass there, so special attention should be paid to finding the plant within its limits.
Clover feeding
Clover will absorb 2/3 of the required amount of nitrogen from the air, so it should not be fertilized with such additives. The plant grows poorly on acidic soil, and after wintering it thins out considerably. For normal growth for 2-3 years, clover requires phosphorus, potassium, calcium, magnesium, molybdenum. In the first year, the plant consumes little fertilizer from the soil, it only takes root. In subsequent years, consumption will be 1.5 times higher.
For acidic soils, liming is required before planting. The plant responds positively to organic fertilization. The rate is 30 t / ha. If it is necessary to obtain seeds, the trefoil should be fertilized with nitrogen additives, because for this the plant may not have enough nitrogen of its own.
When planting, water-soluble fertilizers should be used. It is advisable to use sulfate forms (potassium magnesium, potassium sulfate, etc.). The use of chlorine fertilizers is allowed in the fall.
Useful Tips
- The shamrock can grow in drought, but it is better if it is watered every 5-7 days.
- A special dwarf clover has been developed for lawns. It grows short, it has few foliage and inflorescences.
- If in some places the shamrock has grown weakly after sowing, you should simply annoy it using the usual technology.
- Shamrock flowers are highly attractive to bees. If there are small children, it is better to plant a dwarf clover, which has much fewer flowers. In such cases, mow the lawn more often.
- The plant itself will be sown for only 2-3 years, after which it dies. It is necessary to give the soil new seeds, for which it is possible to cut the plant after the appearance of ripe seed buds.
- Fertilizer care is needed in a minimum amount. Sometimes, if the soil is rich in nutrients, you don't need to fertilize at all.
So, the shamrock as a substitute for other grasses on the lawn will look very nice. The plant has all the necessary benefits:
- unpretentiousness;
- pleasant appearance;
- the ability to resist the influence of negative external factors.
This is enough to choose the trefoil as the plant surrounding the dwelling.
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