Crimson and Clover, over and over...

We have a typical concrete block house with a typical yard and all its foibles. One of these foibles is the fact that our lawn mostly consists of weeds, a few patches of grass, and a series of dirt islands. Being in the middle of a drought cycle you don't want to be one of those people who water their yards endlessly, but you would like to have a nice consistency of green in your yard. During my yearly yard weeding I took a step back and sighed, thinking (as I do each time this year) that maybe, just maybe, we could have a real lawn with the rain we've been getting lately. One problem is we have too much shade but the real problem is we just don't care.

I just put a copy of Gimme Green on hold at the library. It takes a humorous look at how lawns have become a huge industry, especially in Florida where you can't throw a rock without hitting a PGA golf course.

An option I've been looking at lately is growing a clover lawn. "B" was the originator of this germ of an idea in my head, and apparently many others have looked at growing clover lawns as a viable alternative. As this About.com article on the subject states, clover can bring nitrogen to your soil, you don't have to fertilize it, and it is able to access ground water more easily because of deep roots, meaning that watering becomes a non issue.

Here's another article on same from Holistic Bird Newsletter and here is a how-to from wikiHow.