Red clover

How to recognise it

Habit

Short-lived perennial, 15–50 cm, a loose clump with ascending stems; usually lives 2–4 years.

Leaf

Of three elliptic leaflets, 1–4 cm, slightly hairy, often with a pale V-shaped or crescent mark. Stipules triangular, abruptly narrowed into a bristle tip.

Flower

Round to egg-shaped head of 2–3 cm, pink to reddish purple, stalkless just above two leaves. May to September.

Fruit/Seed

Small one-seeded pods hidden in the withered calyx; seed yellow to purplish and kidney-shaped.

Roots

Taproot with many root nodules housing nitrogen-fixing bacteria.

Confusion with

Zigzag clover has zigzag stems, narrow, pointed stipules without a bristle and usually no leaf mark; it is fairly rare. White clover creeps and has white heads on long stalks. Crimson clover has elongated, blood-red spikes.

Flowering: May–September · Pruning: June and September

Why grow it?

• A top plant for long-tongued bumblebees such as the common carder bee and the garden bumblebee; butterflies drink its nectar too.
• Food plant for the caterpillars of, among others, the burnet companion, a day-flying moth, and the clouded yellow, a migrant butterfly.
• With bacteria in its root nodules it fixes nitrogen from the air and so improves the soil.
• Long flowering from May to September; after mowing it flowers again.
• Children have sucked the sweet nectar from the loose florets for generations.
• A mainstay of flower meadows and a classic green manure in the vegetable garden.

Red clover: where does it grow best?

• In the wild: hay meadows, pastures, dykes, road verges, field edges and lawns.
• Full sun; in partial shade it flowers less.
• Moderately fertile, free-draining soil, preferably loam or clay and not too acid; it dislikes wet feet.
• In the garden: flower meadow, a flowery lawn not mown too short, a sunny wild border or as green manure in the vegetable garden.

Goes well with

• Bird’s-foot trefoil: Yellow flowers and food plant of the common blue, on the same sunny ground.
• Oxeye daisy: Large white flowers in June; together the picture of a classic hay meadow.
• Yellow-rattle: Semi-parasite on grasses that gives the clover more room.
• Knapweed: Purple heads that help carry the flowering through July–August.

Red clover: when and how to plant it?

1. Buy seed of wild, native origin from a wild-plant seed supplier; agricultural varieties are larger and less suitable for a flower meadow.
2. Sow in March–May or from late August to September on loosened, weed-free soil, 0.5–1 cm deep, and press in.
3. The seed has a hard coat: soaking it overnight or rubbing it lightly between sandpaper helps it germinate faster.
4. Keep the soil moist until the seedlings appear, after 1–2 weeks. In a meadow, sow it together with grasses and other wild flowers.
5. Plant pot-grown plants in spring, 25–30 cm apart.
6. Never dig up plants from the wild: seed is cheap and establishes well.

Care

Water

Only just after sowing or planting; after that, not needed.

Feeding

Never: it makes its own nitrogen. Fertiliser favours the grasses, which then crowd it out.

Mowing

In a flower meadow, mow in June and September and remove the cuttings. After the first cut it flowers again.

Self-seeding

Red clover lives only a few years. Let part of it set seed now and then, or sow more every few years.

Holding back grasses

Sow yellow-rattle into the meadow: this semi-parasite weakens the grasses, giving clover and other flowers room.

Tip: Never mow your flower meadow all at once: always leave a strip of red clover standing, so the bumblebees still find flowers after mowing.

Pruning and mowing

Pruning months: June and September.

When: In June, after the first flush of flowers, and again in September.

How:

• Mow at 5–8 cm and leave the hay for a few days so seed can drop; then remove it.
• Mow in stages: always leave a strip standing so bumblebees and butterflies can still find flowers.
• As a green manure in the vegetable garden, cut it before it sets seed and work the leaves lightly into the soil.

Pruning: when and how · Pruning calendar and basic rules

Propagation

Seed

Collect seed in August–September, when the heads are brown and dry. Rub them out and sow in spring.

Self-sown seedlings

In a meadow with open patches it seeds itself, if you leave the hay lying for a few days after mowing.

Red clover: how does it get through the winter?

Hardy to −25 °C.

• Overwinters as a small green rosette; in hard frost the leaves die back.
• Hardy to about −25 °C; on wet, heavy soil the plant may rot in winter.
• Leave a strip unmown: small insects overwinter among the withered stems.

Diseases and pests

• Powdery mildew: White powder on the leaves in late summer, especially in dry weather. Harmless; mowing helps.
• Disappearing: After a few years it disappears, especially when grasses close in. Mow and remove cuttings, let it seed and sow more.
• Slugs: They eat young seedlings. In spring, sow a little more thickly or in a drier spot.
• Clover rot: A fungus that makes plants rot in wet winters. Do not sow too densely and grow it on free-draining soil.

Through the year

• March: Sowing possible from late March.
• April: Sow or plant. Young rosettes start growing.
• May: First flowers. Carder bees on the blooms.
• June: Mow after the first flush; leave a strip standing.
• July: Second flush. Watch for butterflies and bumblebees.
• August: Collect seed. Sowing possible from late August.
• September: Second cut, remove the cuttings. Sow.
• November: Dormant. Small green rosettes remain.

Did you know?

• Charles Darwin described how more cats could lead to more red clover: cats catch mice, mice destroy bumblebee nests, and bumblebees pollinate red clover.
• When red clover was sown as fodder in New Zealand, it set hardly any seed. Only after bumblebees were brought in from England in the 1880s did seed production succeed.
• In the 17th century English farmers learned to grow clover in crop rotation from the farmers of Flanders and Brabant.