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I just moved into a new home and want to cover about an acre of newly graded clay soil on south of house. I do not want to mow grass. My dream was to have a field of creeping thyme, but I cant afford the seed. I hope to acquire plugs of thyme gradually, but to stop weeds I put in red clover seed, thinking the nitrogen would be good for any later specimen planting.
There was a deluge of rain the night after I planted, and I figured it all washed out. A week later I put in Dutch clover thinking it would be tidier looking. The red clover came up in gobs where it had been washed to, and is now about 2 1/2 weeks old. The Dutch never surfaced at all in this time as far as I can tell. And today, I noticed a great deal of the red clover has suddenly disappeared, especially in the shadier areas and on slopes! I live in upstate New York where it has rained about 4 times a week all summer, but I thought it was well enough established to hang in by this time.
Not sure where I went wrong. Any thoughts appreciated.
Since there arent any thoughts about this, I will add: Was it dumb to plant red clover? Is white clover much less likely to germinate? Has anyone managed a ground cover of thyme? Is there a better inexpensive non-invasive ground cover?
If you've been having a lot of rain, it could have either washed away small plants that didn't have well-established roots yet, or else it could have just been too much water for them. Thyme needs good drainage so I'm not sure clay is the best thing for it, and it needs sun so I don't think it'll grow in your shady areas (depending on how shady the shady parts are, you may need a different groundcover for those areas). Here's a site that has a nice search engine for groundcovers--you put in your zone, sun/shade, soil type, and other requirements and it'll recommend groundcovers that might work well for you http://www.stepables.com/store/scripts/prodSearch-plants.asp
Yeah., had to be washed out- plants had no sign of disease. Thank you for the cool site! But I put in my components, and got just one answer- Double bladder campion. Took away my deer resistant requirement and got one additional: Cerastium Alpine Mouse Ear. I will check to see if there are seeds for campion- the other one is gray and I think weeds would show up too much. I guess it's the clay that limits the choices- I didnt specify the color or growth rate.
Try leaving out the clay part and see what you get--since it's on a hill it'll drain better than flat ground so as long as you're not planning on drowning the area with sprinklers you can probably get away with things that might not normally be ideal for clay. The things that really need sandy soil still won't work for you, but you might have a little more flexibility than you think.
Good idea, Ecrane. I asked the nursery about not getting any germination from the white clover, and they said it's a perennial and probably needs over-wintering to start.
