How to Kill Clover in a Flower Bed

Eradicate clover from your flower bed before it blooms.

Clover in lawns or flower beds is never welcome and, because of its ability to spread by roots and seeds, is difficult to eradicate. In flower beds, clover can be growing close to preferred plants, which will make using commercial herbicides challenging since you do not want to kill the nearby flowering plants. Hand pulling and using a hoe, though time consuming, are the most effective ways to eliminate clover from a flower bed.

Things You'll Need

• Garden gloves
• Hand spade
• Hoe
• Mulch
• Herbicide

Instructions

1. Wear garden gloves to protect your hands when you hand pull clover from your flower bed. Grab the plant at the base, close to the soil, and gently pull the roots free. Because clover sometimes has an extensive root system, it may be easier to remove the plants soon after you have completed watering your flower bed, when the soil is soft with moisture.

2. Use a hand spade or trowel to carefully loosen the soil around the clover roots if the plant does not hand pull easily. You need to extract as much of the root system as you can to ensure the clover plant does not return from remaining roots.

3. Use a hoe to lob off the tops of clover plants when you have an excessive number of plants in your flower garden. Gather up the chopped off tops and dispose of them away from your garden so there is not the possibility of reseeding. The roots can be hoed out of the soil or left in with a thick layer of mulch put over the soil to discourage regrowth.

4. Spread a thick layer, 2 to 3 inches deep, of mulch over exposed ground in your flower garden. A thick layer of mulch will block the sun from any germinating seeds or possible regrowth of the clover. Monitor the mulch depth throughout the year to maintain a thick layer. Clover germinates in the very early spring, so it is important the mulch remain over the soil area year around.

5. Hand spray a broad-leaf herbicide on isolated clover plants that may reappear. As long as you are careful not to get any herbicide on your flower leaves, herbicide sprayed on individual clover plants is effective.

Tips & Warnings

• Use a drip irrigation system to water your flowers. Clover thrives in moist soil, so if you can only water your flowering plants and not the surrounding soil, the clover plants will die.

• Try to remove the clover plants from your garden before the plant begins to flower. Annual clover produces an abundance of tiny seeds which can spread and germinate.

References

• Washington State Department of Ecology: Weeds: Clover: Trifolium spp.
• The Lawn Advisor: How to Kill Clover Weeds
• University of California-Davis: Pests in Gardens and Landscapes-Clover
• University of Texas: Ask Mr. Smarty Plants