Shamrocks For The Home Landscape

It is low growing and green through summer dry spells and before the 1950's provided nitrogen for lawn grasses. Widespread and increasingly inexpensive use of fertilizers and herbicides changed the incidences of clover in lawns. Today, this once popular lawn component is now widely looked upon either as a weed or a forage crop.

However, white clover is slowly making a comeback in low-maintenance lawns. Residents of pesticide free zones in Canada are again using white clover for their lawns. It is growing in popularity in the Northeast United States as well. Homeowners wanting to try growing some in their own lawns, and willing to keep away from broad-leaf herbicides, will find the following characteristics of White Dutch clover very valuable.

White Dutch clover:

• grows about four to eight inches high,
• tolerates low mowing well,
• spreads to fill in empty spaces,
• stays green through dry periods of summer,
• tolerates dog urine and
• provides nitrogen (up to 2 pounds of N/1000 square feet) for the other grasses in the lawn, eliminating the need to fertilize.

Now you know you can grow and appreciate your own shamrocks as well as have an inexpensive and healthy lawn.

You can learn more about E. Charles Nelson PhD and his interest in the botany and history of the shamrock by accessing his family website Tippitiwitchet Cottage. When Boethius Press (formerly in Kilkenny, Ireland & Aberystwyth, Wales) stopped printing, Nelson acquired their remaining stock of his titles including Shamrock: Botany and History of an Irish Myth. This is now available directly from Nelson or the book can also be obtained though used bookstores.

Readers can also learn more about the mythology of the shamrock here at the Suite by accessing Shamrocks: Luck O' the Clovers by Audrey Stallsmith at Historical Plants.

Mary Alward at Great Books for Kids has selected books for young readers about shamrocks and other things Irish in her March article St. Patrick's Day Reading.

Elsewhere on the web are these resources:

• Irish History Info at The Irish History Home Page,
• Shamrocks, Harps, and Shillelaghs: The Story of the St. Patrick's Day Symbols by Ursula Arndt (Illustrator), Edna Barth (Author), and
• St. Patrick's Day: Parades, Shamrocks, and Leprechauns (Finding Out About Holidays) by Elaine Landau.
  The copyright of the article Shamrocks For The Home Landscape in Landscape Design is owned by Georgene A. Bramlage. Permission to republish Shamrocks For The Home Landscape in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

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