A four leaved clover is considered a lucky charm in many cultures; they can be annoying popping up everywhere in your garden and sucking all the nutrients from the soil leaving little for the plantations. They crop up where you have an arrangement of the garden and mar the beauty. So it is difficult to remove these when they grow alongside the plants that matter.
Mostly, you can remove the clovers with bare hands but when they are too many it is better to use an instrument or a method to remove these. While a small patch can be handled with bare hands, more number of these needs a rake to remove them. While you remove them with the hands you can look for the four leaf variety to carry some luck all day.
Using a weeder to remove them is a good idea. It is a special tool to remove the weed from the garden. The scrape enters the soil easily and removes the weed effortlessly. First spray some water in the area and then let it dry off a little. Then when you use a weeder, the clovers get uprooted without much effort.
Using an acid solution in the soil to kill the clover is a good thought. Since these require healthy soil to survive, they perish when you make the mud acidic. You could use vinegar or any other acid liquid which destroys the clover. This is potent enough for the clover to perish without affecting the other plants. Materials you need are three to five bottles of vinegar, a trowel and top soil to cover up the liquid. Pour enough of the vinegar to wet the whole patch where the weeds are growing. Wait for them to perish. Then use a trowel and weed them out of your garden. Cover the bald spots with the top soil so that your ornamental plants can grow there.
Another good method is to grow tall grass and weeds which take up space all around the clovers. These will ultimately choke the clovers since there will be no place for them to grow. They will not get enough nourishment and gradually will wither away.
You can prevent the clover from growing in your garden by sprinkling a little sugar solution on the soil. The enzymes from the sugar will kill the clover and also stunt its growth and spread. However, these are not harmful for your other plants. Material you will need is five kilos of sugar, a water hose, some vinegar (maybe). Spread the sugar on the clover growth evenly. Use the hose to spray water on the sugared areas completely so that the sugar is dissolved into the soil. When there is any clover growth, douse it with some vinegar and then pull these out with your hands.
Another method of preventing the clover from growing in the garden is to use corn gluten to be spread similar to sugar. While it enriches the soil it eliminates the weedy clover formations and stunts their appearance completely. This method is considered more effective than using sugar.
In small numbers, clover may in fact even benefit your garden. It has a unique ability to turn the nitrogen in the soil into a natural fertilizer. When the plant starts growing, that’s when the fight starts. Clover competes with the other surrounding plants for soil nourishment. At this stage, you will have to choose between clover and your flowering plants and it is no surprise that your flowers will be your priority. Pulling out weeds and clover is best for your garden, though you may have a small patch with a few clovers on a side somewhere, to make the soil more fertile, but please ensure you maintain it regularly so that it doesn’t affect the surrounding plants and stays restricted to its patch.
