A New Year: Resolving to Get Water-Wise with Dutch Clover

Made any resolutions? I have. I resolve to get smart about the amount of water I use on my lawn and gardens. 

My town has countless good points, but timing is not one of them. Our water department mails invoices for water used during the final portion of the growing season so late that its requests for funds hit home at the same time receipts for holiday gifts are stacking up. You can imagine my dismay when a bill of gargantuan proportion arrived at my door this December, right at the wrong time.

This year may have been an extreme case, with summer drought and an extended back end to the growing season. But even if next summer is different, I am on the road to realizing I should conserve both water and funds. I plan to focus on using, among other plants, Black-Leaved Dutch Clover (Trifolium repens) as a key water-wise plant.

Clover grows naturally in parts of my lawn. When the grass around it gets hay-like during the hottest part of summer, it stays green. White Dutch Clover, which flowers in balls of powdery white petals and has green foliage, grows with ease. And oh, how the pollinators love it! But as a lawn replacement, I am not quite there yet: I think I would find a full Cloverscape to be a bit wild looking for my present taste. (Who knows? I may grow to love it.) But Black-Leaved Dutch Clover has caught my eye recently. When Black-Leaved Dutch Clover next becomes available, I will get some in preparation for spring planting. 

I am thinking I could plant this purplish-black Dutch Clover in my backyard in an area that already has water-wise Solomon’s Seal, tough Irises requiring minimal hydration, and Sweet Woodruff which never gets parched. Black-Leaved Dutch Clover could be planted under the taller water-wise plants and could creep out to cover more of what otherwise would be grass. This new set-up could allow me to shut off one zone in my irrigation system. I would simply begin watering this section of my yard by hand from time to time. Baby steps, yes… but this would get me on my way to conserving water (and funds used to supply it).

At present, many gardeners are keeping water conservation in mind. Some Internet commentators are predicting that 2023 will usher in a time when natural, native plant-filled, meadow-style displays become popular as gardens for those who are conservation-minded. Grouping plants with similar hydration and nutritional needs is already a gardening approach used in Germany, with public greenspaces able to sustain themselves with little human help, due to the way plants with like-needs are grouped. And now that is coming stateside, even to my own garden. Purposely growing Dutch Clover as companion to other water-wise plants is a start.

Now, it is only fair to acknowledge that Dutch Clover draws in not only the pollinators but also the bunnies. And many would fear that would spell disaster for other plantings in the garden. But from my own experience, I know that the bunnies that have fed on my Dutch Clover have chosen it over everything else in bloom. They have not gone from munching it to munching other flowerheads, save for one instance when a low-blooming rose became a light dessert after a Dutch Clover entree. But for the most part, it seems that the more Dutch Clover I have, the more I can corral the bunnies and ensure that I know exactly what they will eat. This seems much better than allowing them to choose their own snacks. They favor the Clover, and because their prime interest seems to be in its flowers and not its foliage, they can nibble without harming the look of the ground covering portion of this plant. (That works for me.)

In the case of Black-Leaved Dutch Clover, that ground covering portion has a dark matte look, in burgundy-kissed brown or black tones and green leaf margins. I believe it may look like a mulch under my taller plants, and it would certainly serve as a mulch in terms of helping to preserve the moisture in the soil around other plantings. And Black-Leaved Dutch Clover will have just enough eye-catching difference in the garden to make it clear that I have planted something special and have not just let something spring up. 

Well, add this to my list of many resolutions, from drinking less coffee to wasting less time. But I am confident this is one I can and should keep. When Black-Leaved Dutch Clover becomes available in the new growing season, I will get some. Conservation has deeper aims than what I share here. But as a benchmark to conserving, I will look to simple differences I can see right away: My water bill is likely to shrink, and my purse is likely to grow. That will help me to know I am on my way to being mindful of the need to conserve. That is not bad for a change that requires almost no effort. That’s at least a start for 2023.