May 17, 2008
Gratuitous Domestic Posting (TM) - Outdoor Division
I hate clover.
Oh, sure. It looks cute, sitting there all rounded and cheery and gosh, if you find a four-leafed one you are soooo in luck.
Pah!
It's eeeeevil, I tell you. Currently, the stuff is trying to take over my garden. And its malevolent spirit is revealed in the fact that it is most heavily concentrated right where I've got foxglove and cosmos seedlings coming up. It knows that I can't simply spray it or plow it under, but must spend hours and hours - if I want to save my babies - picking it out one plant at a time. "Oi, a real innerestin' choice o' specimens you've got there, squire. Be a real shame if sumfin 'appened to em now, wunnit?"
Bastards.
It's said that St. Patrick used the clover to explain the Trinity to the aboriginal Irish. No doubt he though he was doing the Lord's work, but I can't help thinking that by employing this noxious devil-weed, he was in fact inadvertently spreading some kind of sooper sekret message that came straight from the hot place.
Posted by Robert at May 17, 2008 04:46 PM | TrackBackHalf my backyard is clover, so just yesterday I googled "get rid of clover." And wouldn't you know, all these weenie sites are all "Don't get rid of it! It's pretty! It's green! It's beneficial!" Pheh. I'm real tired of the organic, corn gluten meal, wiccan chants or whatever passes for gardening these days. Just tell me what sort of eeeeeeeeeevil Round-up style devil's juice I can put on it and make it go away. Take yer corn-gluten and.....pheh.
Posted by: Monica at May 17, 2008 05:49 PMThe shamrock I was raised to know as shamrock is the Common Wood Sorrel, not white or red clover.
That being said, I like clover. But then again, I come from the country, and it is good for cattle (and the soil), so there you go - we value it for its fodder properties, and do not scorn it on account of effete gardening foppery ;-)
Posted by: Fuinseoig at May 17, 2008 07:25 PMViolets are the current bane of my existence. I don't have clover crowding out the flowers, but the violets are sprouting out everywhere.
Posted by: Jordana at May 17, 2008 09:30 PMI'm not a Greenie but I try to leave patches of clover in the backyard for the honeybees--those little guys are having a bad time of it these days and are terribly important pollenators. I grew up with a field of white clover next to my parent's house and I guess, to me, one of the simple pleasures of life is the sweet smell of clover in the air and the buzzing of the bees. Not to mention clover honey poured over hot buttered biscuits!!
Posted by: Chuck at May 17, 2008 10:14 PMBabs, I'm one of the aboriginal Irish he mentioned in his plaint about the evils of clover for the gentleman horticulturist - what did you expect? ;-)
Chuck - "one of the simple pleasures of life is the sweet smell of clover in the air and the buzzing of the bees" - oh, yes, very much so!
Posted by: Fuinseoig at May 18, 2008 06:57 AMI'm with Chuck and Fuinseoig on this one -- I love clover, for all the reasons mentioned.
Posted by: Boy Named Sous at May 18, 2008 03:04 PMListen, you lot, Babs has been after me for years about the virtues of clover in the lawn and I have finally resigned myself to its inevitability there. What I object to is its strident effort to take over everywhere else. Don't the bees and butterflies deserve options when it comes to the business of pollenating?
And yes, the shamrock is white clover, although I'm sure the name gets applied to a lot of other things as well.
Posted by: Robbo the LB at May 18, 2008 03:40 PMWhat Robert, you don't want to be rolling in clover?
Posted by: rbj at May 18, 2008 07:41 PMdepending on how many desired seedlings you have, you can try putting Dixie cups over them and then spray the rest with roundup.
Posted by: dave.s. at May 19, 2008 08:25 AM
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