I own a few acres of land in Central California basically the middle of nowhere. The land is covered in a bunch of dry brush that makes it a pain to get to since its about waist high and makes it difficult to access( try to go camping each year). So what Im thinking is covering the land with a bunch of clover seeds hoping that will it will provide better foliage and all around more pleasant to look at too. I got this idea since I heard its very drought resistant and everything basically dies there in the Summer.
I think a lot of the stuff on the land is already invasive like veldtgrass and has stickers and pokers everywhere, but Im hoping the clover with basically take over and make my land more accessible.
So is this a feasible thing to do? It gets a lot of rain in the late Fall and Winter months, but otherwise its not like Im going to go there to water it. If it dries up in the Summer thats fine if it can return the following Spring. Also, would this be a bad idea to introduce it to the area? Its not like I can maintain or control it after I spread the seeds around so Im wondering if it will be invasive and detrimental to the rest of the surrounding area.
Why not do crimson clover? It's native to California anyways.
Ive found its the opposite. Although it is real nice looking and provides tons of ground cover. The prairie is also in a huge valley with tons of wildflowers each Spring and some are supposedly at risk for being endangered, so idk if I should do non native plants
Ah. My mistake, it was bearded clover.
Looks like I cant buy this one anywhere. Im not really an envirogay, but I also dont want t permanently affect the entire region by making my glorified camping spot pretty. Still Im debating if I should say frick it and plant some sort of clover mix anyways
Clover is a net benefit because it fixes nitrogen and makes a shit ton of nectar for pollinators. Who cares if it's non-native
Im leaning more towards this.
Lets say its around the Carrizo Plain. Ive seen some grasses there before, but for some reason shitty dry brush that pokes at your legs likes my area better than not even a quarter mile away. Also how would I go about restoring these grasses? Im going to assume buying seeds, but idk if these will be widely available
Here's a web resource for native and non-native plants that grow in that area. If you can't find the seeds then try seeding a plant that isn't considered invasive and doesn't thrive in that climate. That will keep it weak enough that it doesn't spread and become invasive. Either way the best way to seed the area will be to use clay seed balls. If you add compost, amended 20% by volume with lump charcoal crushed to about 10 mesh, to the clay at around 10% by volume then the seeds will have a better chance at getting established.
Thanks anon, will look into these tomorrow.
There are some rare rabbits in the area, maybe that could attract some of them.
For the link
https://www.calflora.org/app/ipl?vrid=gr13770&bloom=t
looking up calishitnia clovers and the price is unreal
https://larnerseeds.com/products/california-native-clover-collection
just plant the clover. eventually it will evolve into this shit.
>It will eventually evolve into shit
[spoilers]The genetic mutations that drive the "evolution model' come from high energy radiation from local group stars during GSM. [/spoilers].
Ordinarily I am a major native plant gay but I think clover is one of the few examples of non-native plants that are bro's. They do a lot of good.
Besides, most insects and herbivores that make use of native clover will be able to use a non-native clover in the same way.
OP back again. I knew PrepHole was a slow board, but Im glad to see my thread still up.
Nice. Im thinking of just getting a clover mix and spreading the seeds around my plot of land. In the coming months after the rain. Also thinking of getting some California Poppy seeds too, but I noticed that they only grow at higher elevations in the area here(on the mountain tops) so idk if they will be able to grow at lower elevation.
>Central California basically the middle of nowhere
Where approx? its a long state with a wide range of native grasses and grasslands. Maybe restore native grasses?
We live in southern Oregon and went with white clover for our lawn. Doesn’t need watering (much) and comes back every spring after getting fried in the summer.
We now get so many bees it’s insane, also rabbits, they love the stuff.
take the yarrow pill
Yarrow can grow tall as frick. OP said he doesn't want waist high plants
I don't know about you but clover around me can grow up to a foot my-guy. Yarrow is fuzzy most of the year and you can mow it like a lawn or scythe it or whatever. If you have goats or a healthy deer population you can basically ignore it.
A foot is wildly different from 3-4 feet. Yarrow is great, but he wants a field that he can walk through without having to maintain it. Yarrow just isn't what he's looking for.
Yes, I get it, you have never tried it and are speaking on behalf of someone you don't know about something you clearly know very little about.
I've seen both clover and yarrow yards and clover needs to be mowed dude or it will look like a flower bed and not actually be inviting to walk on.
I have yarrow in my yard and a friend of mine had it in a flower bed. It shoots up to 3-4 ft in the spring and dies in the middle of summer leaving tall sticks and if the planting is dense enough it is impassable. Read the OP again. It's not like this is his yard and he's going to be mowing it regularly.
>clover needs to be mowed dude or it will look like a flower bed and not actually be inviting to walk on.
Yarrow is also a flower and it's much taller than clover. It is much harder to walk through a patch of yarrow.
This hasn't been my experience with yarrow.
It have seen it bolt for various reasons but I've also seen clover do that as well. I would take a picture of mine but it's all dead right now and I'm expecting another snow storm.
The difference is that you're a moron. See the lawnmower in your picture? That's why your yarrow doesn't grow to 4 ft. Reread the OP. He's not going to go out and mow it.
I looked up yarrow and it said it takes over a month for it to germinate. Wtf.
I have a small strip of land I want to plant with some wildflowers but ideally I want them to grow quickly and fill up space so its not barren. I already have red clovers. I am in Pennsylvania btw
Nasturtiums might work for you. They can reseed themselves pretty reliably. Sunflowers are low maintenance and you can get a culinary variety if you want to eat the seeds. If you're into foodscaping then you could do radishes and after the flowers are exhausted you can harvest the seed pods, but the root will be rock hard at that point. You could do mint or creeping thyme or some other herbs. You could plant bulbs like tulips or crocus or grape hyacinth. You could buy roses to plant there. You could buy a wildflower mix.
How much work do you want to put in and what do you want to get out of it besides ground cover?
Thanks for the suggestions. I was shying away from annuals because I felt it was a waste of money buying new seed every year but if it reseeds reliably I like that too.
>How much work do you want to put in and what do you want to get out of it besides ground cover?
I want it to take care of itself so I can just leave it alone but I know I will still have to do weeding becase I have a stiltgrass problem.
Really I just want it to look pretty without it being some uptight manicured garden.
>I was shying away from annuals because I felt it was a waste of money buying new seed every year but if it reseeds reliably I like that too.
A lot of annuals won't reseed themselves reliably, but there are some that you can depend on. Snapdragons and poppies are also great at reseeding themselves.
>I want it to take care of itself so I can just leave it alone but I know I will still have to do weeding becase I have a stiltgrass problem.
You can try putting down a layer of cardboard and covering it with straw to smother the stiltgrass. You'd have to dig through the cardboard or put a layer of compost or dirt over the top to get seeds to sprout and root through the cardboard. I more meant how much work do you want to put into getting it started. If you choose to go with bulbs and you wanted things that flower at different times then you'll be doing a lot of digging. You can scatter a bunch of seeds and put some compost and straw over the top to help them germinate but you'll be limited to plants with a seeding depth of 1/8" unless you add a thicker layer of compost or dirt. Nasturtiums need to be soaked overnight and then planted between 1/2" and 1" with a 10" spacing, so you'd have to do almost as much work as the bulbs.
>Really I just want it to look pretty without it being some uptight manicured garden.
I feel you. Make sure that you think about what it will look like in each season. You can use the dead plants as mulch to basically eliminate cleanup. You might want to read Ruth Stout's "No Work Garden Book" for some good information about using a thick mulch layer to reduce the amount of effort you need to put in.
I have a bunch of wood chips which I used to cover some places a few years back but eventually it decomposed and stiltgrass ended up taking over anyways. It's good dirt so I just need to fill in the space with some other aggressive plants.
>how much work do you want to put into getting it started
I don't mind a bit of work but tbh I never liked bulbs and the yearly redigging. I must have spent hours pulling out stiltgrass so I'm hoping to try smothering it out with other grasses and clovers and what else.
I'm liking the idea of Nasturtiums because that's the sort of fast growing spreader I like. Hell I'd even grow knotweed if it wasn't so ugly. Same with stiltgrass, I wouldn't mind it but its shape and color make it stand out from other plants.
I love nasturtiums. They're edible, they don't require much attention after you plant them, and there's a ton of colors to choose from.
Legumes are a great idea for improving a field. The problem is getting a good crop established. If you have waist high vegetation with little light getting through to the ground, you are going to have a hard time. If that is the case, mulching prior to sowing might be a good idea.
Mesquite is in the legume family. It takes about 2 years to establish--where you have to protect it from grazers--after that you can leave it alone. It will send roots down 40 feet+, pump up nutrients from below the root line of other plants and drop it back on the topsoil in the form of branches and edible fruits.
They used to be very common in north American savannah.
Neat, didn't know about this, although I think OP doesn't exactly picture a mesquite thicket.
They don't grow in thickets per-se
They are heavily grazed on by basically everything so the babies won't establish unless you protect them. It's quite reasonable to assume the only ones that grow are the ones you protect from the grazers until they establish.
stolen your idea op haha finders keepers
Do it. Deer and bees love it. Get a decent Scrub Cutter too and go full ape shit with it and clear scrub. They'll clear a quarter acre in a day If you're fit enough.
Lots of other nice trees to grow too
This is basically part of my day job op.
What you need is a very diverse winter cover crop to start.
You can turn your land into something amazing in just a few years.
Watch Kiss the Ground on netflix then follow the rabbit hole down.
You can even get paid by the NRDC to improve your land through a healthy soils program.
If you only use annuals , you can defeat the invasive species and then let the natural seed bank in the soil restore your native prairie