If three-leaf patches and little white flowers have crept into your grass, take a breath. Clover is a common lawn visitor, and you can get the upper hand. Clover grows best where grass is thin and soil nitrogen is low because it makes its own nitrogen. The way to remove clover from your lawn for good is to correct the conditions that invited it.
You can start by confirming that you’re looking at clover, and not another type of plant.
Identifying Clover in Your Lawn
Most clover in home lawns is white clover (Trifolium repens). You can confirm it in a minute by checking the leaves, flowers, and runners.
White clover has three rounded leaflets, often with a pale inverted V. The flower heads are round, ½ to ¾ inch wide, and made up of 20 to 40 tiny white or pinkish flowers. You’ll see them most often from late spring into early summer.
Now look at the stems. White clover sends creeping stems, called stolons, along the soil surface. Each stolon can root at a node and start a new plant. These can creep into thin turf, forming patches in your lawn.
White clover also sets seed that can stay dormant in the soil for long periods. Between the runners and the seed bank, one quick pass with a weeding tool won’t finish the job.
How to Tell Clover Apart From Oxalis and Black Medic
Yellow woodsorrel, also called oxalis, and black medic also have three leaflets. Their yellow flowers are the quickest way to separate them from white clover.
Plant |
Leaflets |
Flowers |
Growth habit |
White clover |
Three oval leaflets with a pale inverted-V mark |
White or pinkish globe-shaped clusters |
Low mats with runners that root at the nodes |
Black medic |
Three oval leaflets, with the center leaflet on a longer stalk |
Small yellow clusters |
Low-growing from a central crown |
Yellow woodsorrel (oxalis) |
Three heart-shaped leaflets with a deep notch at the tip |
Small yellow, cup-shaped flowers with five petals |
Starts low, then grows more upright |
A product that controls clover may not list oxalis or black medic. Check the label before you buy. If you’re still unsure what’s growing, use our lawn weed identification guide.
Rule Out Clover Mites
If you see tiny red specks on your siding windows or windowsills, you might be dealing with clover mites. Clover mites are reddish, about 1/32 inch long, and often found around windows and other sunny areas. They don’t bite people or pets, and clearing clover from the lawn won’t solve a clover mite problem. You’ll need to contact pest control for that.
Once you’ve confirmed you’ve got white clover, the next step is to find out why it moved in.
Why Is Clover Growing in My Lawn?
Look at where the clover is growing and how you’ve been caring for the lawn. The location often points to the cause of your clover problem.
Your Soil Is Low in Nitrogen
White clover is a legume. Bacteria in its roots pull nitrogen from the air and turn it into a form the plant can use. Grass doesn’t have that backup, so your grass may thin out in nitrogen-poor soil while clover keeps growing.
If the clover is spread fairly evenly across your yard, your soil probably has a low nitrogen problem.
Your Grass Is Too Thin
Clover needs open soil and sunlight to establish. Thin grass gives it both. A denser lawn can reduce white clover infestations through good establishment and lush grass.
If clover is filling old bare spots, worn paths, or areas in your yard that never filled in after seeding, you’ll have to solve the problem of thin turf.
Your Soil Is Compacted or Dry
White clover is also a good sign that you have compacted soil.
Compacted soil squeezes out the air and water that your grass roots need. Clover tolerates those conditions better than most lawn grasses. If clover is thickest along paths, play areas, or the edge of the driveway, you’re likely to have a soil compaction problem. Our guide to aerating compacted soil walks through the fix.
Dry weather adds more pressure. Drought-stressed grass thins and browns, leaving more room for clover to spread.
Your Mower Is Set Too Low
White clover grows close to the ground, so a low mower blade barely touches it. Short mowing also removes more leaf area from your grass and reduces root depth.
If you mow short to keep the lawn looking tidy, that may be helping the clover spread.
Your Soil pH Is Out of Range
When soil pH drifts too high or too low, grass can’t take up nutrients as easily. That makes the nitrogen problem worse. If you’ve been feeding the lawn on schedule and clover still spreads, test your soil before changing anything else.
Removing clover without fixing these conditions buys you time, not a permanent fix. Before you start, it’s worth asking whether you want it gone at all.
Is Clover Good for Your Lawn?
Clover does several useful things. It fixes nitrogen levels in your soil, feeds pollinators, tolerates poor soil, and stays green even in drought. Before broadleaf herbicides, white clover was commonly used to kill off other plants in the 1950s.
Clover still changes how a lawn looks and how you can use it. That tradeoff is why many homeowners remove it.
What clover adds |
What clover changes |
Fixes nitrogen and adds it to the soil around it |
Breaks up the even color and texture of a grass lawn |
Tolerates low-fertility soil where grass struggles |
Spreads by runners into flower beds and borders |
Helps break up compacted soil |
Draws bees to areas where kids and pets play barefoot |
Attracts pollinators, and some homeowners plant it for bee lawns |
Can take over large areas once grass thins |
Can reduce how much fertilizer the lawn needs |
Signals a nutrient problem that also affects your grass |
If you want an even, all-grass lawn, you’ll want to remove all the clover for good. If you only have a small patch of clover, you can deal with that by hand.
How to Remove Clover From Your Lawn by Hand
Hand-pulling is the best first choice for a few small patches of clover or for a lawn where you don’t want to use any products. It works well across a few square feet but can be tedious for a whole yard.
White clover can be dug up easily before it is well established, so catching new patches early saves you time and effort.
- Water the patch the day before, or work after a good rain. Soft soil lets the roots and runners of clover come up whole.
- Find the outer edge of the patch and slide a hand fork or weeding tool under it.
- Loosen the soil and lift slowly from the base. Work from the edges toward the center instead of tearing at the middle.
- Follow each runner to its end and pull it up with any roots at the nodes.
- Run your fingers through the loosened soil and remove any runner pieces left behind.
- Bag the pulled clover so seeds don’t drop back into the lawn. Pull before flowering when you can.
- Seed or cover the bare spot within the same week.
Spend an extra minute on the runners. Every node that touches the soil can start a new plant, so a slow, steady pull along each runner keeps the patch from coming back.
Seeding and covering bare spots in your yard is so important if you don’t want the clover to come back. Bare soil is how clover got in, and an open spot invites it right back. For small gaps, a GrowTrax Lawn Repair Roll lays down grass seed, fertilizer, and mulch together, giving the cleared spot new grass and the nutrients the clover was using.
When clover has spread past what you can pull in an afternoon, natural controls can work across the whole lawn.
How to Get Rid of Clover in Your Lawn Naturally
Natural control takes patience, but it can shrink clover while making your grass stronger. These methods suit homes with pets, kids, vegetable gardens, or an organic lawn care plan.
Feed Your Lawn to Crowd Out Clover
Feeding is the most effective natural control. Raising soil nitrogen levels removes clover’s biggest advantage and gives grass the fuel to outgrow it.
Feed cool-season lawns in late April or early May, mid-September, and late October or early November. Warm-season grasses should be fed during their summer growing season.
Mow Higher to Shade Out Clover
Taller grass shades the soil and makes life harder for low-growing clover. Mow cool-season lawns at three inches or more in summer and never remove more than one-third of the grass blade at once. For shorter warm-season grasses such as Bermuda grass, use the top of the recommended range for that grass.
Smother Patches You Plan to Reseed
Cover a clover patch with cardboard or plastic sheeting for several weeks to block out sunlight. Smothering also kills the grass under the cover, so use this technique only on patches you plan to reseed.
Use Corn Gluten Meal on New Seedlings
Corn gluten meal is a natural pre-emergent. It contains compounds that inhibit root formation in germinating seeds, and adds nitrogen as it breaks down.
Corn gluten meal won’t kill your established clover. It also stops grass seed from rooting, so don’t use this during an overseeding season.
Keep Vinegar for Cracks and Borders
Horticultural vinegar with 10 to 20 percent acetic acid burns plant tissue on contact. It kills most plants it touches, including grass.
Vinegar doesn’t reach the roots, so perennial weeds like clover often regrow a week or so later. Vinegar with 11 percent acetic acid or more can burn your skin and cause severe eye injury.
Use it in sidewalk cracks, patio joints, and other hard edges where there’s no grass to protect.
Natural method |
Kills established clover? |
Harms your grass? |
Best use |
Nitrogen fertilizer |
Over one to two seasons |
No, it feeds the grass |
Widespread clover |
Higher mowing |
Slowly, by shading the soil |
No, it strengthens the grass |
Every lawn, all season |
Smothering |
Yes, after several weeks |
Yes, it kills grass under the cover |
Patches you’ll reseed |
Corn gluten meal |
No, it affects seedlings only |
It stops new seed from rooting |
Lawns you won’t overseed this season |
Horticultural vinegar |
Burns leaves only |
Yes, it kills grass on contact |
Cracks, paths, and borders |
Natural methods of lawn maintenance need a season or two to show their full effect. If clover covers large areas of your yard and you want faster control, move on to a selective herbicide.
How to Kill Clover in Your Lawn With Herbicide
A selective broadleaf herbicide can clear a heavy clover infestation faster than hand-pulling or natural controls. When you use the right product as directed, it kills broadleaf weeds such as clover and leaves lawn grass unharmed.
Choose a Product That Names Clover
Clover killer products often combine two or more broadleaf herbicides.
Read the label for two things before you buy:
- Clover is listed as a weed the product controls.
- Your grass type is listed as safe.
Don’t use a non-selective weed killer on the lawn. It will kill the grass along with the clover. Save those products for gravel paths and fence lines.
Apply Herbicide When Clover Is Actively Growing
Fall is the strongest season for clover control. Applications from mid-September to early November work better than late spring or summer treatments. During fall, clover moves energy into its roots, and it carries the herbicide down with it.
A few weather rules help the treatment work:
- Spray while clover is actively growing, not during drought.
- Avoid days above 90°F. Don’t apply three-way herbicides at those temperatures.
- Choose a calm day so spray doesn’t drift into garden beds.
- Follow the label for the required rain-free period.
Spot-Treat and Plan a Second Pass
Spot-treating clover patches uses less herbicide and puts less stress on the lawn than spraying the whole yard. Some clover usually survives the first pass, so plan a follow-up at the interval the label allows.
Keep children and pets off treated areas for the length of time listed on the label. Keep spray away from vegetable beds. If the clover is blooming, mow off the flowers a day or two before spraying so fewer bees are foraging there.
Wait Before You Reseed
Herbicide residue can stop new grass seed from establishing. Follow the reseeding interval on your product label.
After treatment, the open soil needs quick attention. That’s where long-term prevention starts.
How to Keep Clover From Coming Back
Once the clover is gone, keep the soil fed and the grass thick enough to leave clover no room to return.
What let clover in |
How to keep it from coming back |
Low soil nitrogen |
Feed on a regular schedule for your grass type |
Soil pH out of range |
Test the soil and adjust pH |
Thin, patchy grass |
Overseed thin areas and fill bare spots |
Compacted soil |
Core-aerate high-traffic areas |
Mower set too low |
Mow at the top of your grass type’s range |
Drought stress |
Water deeply and less often |
Test Your Soil So Feeding Stays on Target
A soil test tells you how much nitrogen the lawn needs and whether pH is limiting nutrient uptake.
Overseed So Grass Fills the Gaps
Thick grass fills the gaps where clover runners would otherwise root. Overseed in early fall for cool-season grasses and in late spring for warm-season grasses.
Aerate Compacted Spots and Water Deeply
Core aeration opens the soil so air, water, and fertilizer can reach grass roots. Focus on paths and play areas where clover was thickest. Then water deeply and less often. Short daily sprinkles keep grass roots shallow and make drought stress more likely. Deep watering builds deeper roots.
Close Bare Patches With a GrowTrax Roll
Every GrowTrax roll combines grass seed, fertilizer, and mulch in one layer. Rolling one over a cleared patch gives you new grass to close the gap and fertilizer to feed the soil the clover was exploiting. The mulch helps hold moisture while the seed establishes.
Match the roll to the job:
- Lawn Repair Roll: bare spots left after pulling or spot-treating small clover patches
- NU-Lawn Roll: overseeding a medium-sized lawn that thinned enough for clover to spread
- PRO Roll: a full renovation where clover has taken over large sections of the yard
If you used an herbicide, wait for the reseeding interval on the label before rolling out a GrowTrax mat. The same timing rule applies after corn gluten meal.
Common Questions About Clover in Your Lawn
Why is clover growing in my lawn?
Clover usually means low soil nitrogen and thin grass. Clover fixes its own nitrogen, so it thrives where grass is underfed. Compacted soil, short mowing, and drought stress give it another edge.
What kills clover but not grass?
A selective broadleaf herbicide labeled for clover kills clover while leaving lawn grass unharmed when used as directed. Check that the label lists your grass type as safe. St. Augustinegrass and centipedegrass need reduced rates of some 2,4-D products.
How do I get rid of clover in my lawn naturally?
Feed the lawn with nitrogen fertilizer and mow at the top of the recommended height for your grass. Pull small patches after rain, smother larger patches with cardboard, and seed every bare spot.
Does vinegar kill clover?
Horticultural vinegar burns clover leaves on contact, and it kills the surrounding grass too. Vinegar doesn’t reach the roots, so clover often regrows within a week or two. Keep it for cracks and borders.
Will clover go away on its own?
Clover rarely goes away on its own. It spreads by runners and seed, so an established patch usually expands. Once you feed the lawn and thicken the grass, the grass can outcompete clover.
Is clover bad for your lawn?
Clover doesn’t harm your grass. It adds nitrogen to the soil and feeds pollinators. Most homeowners remove it because of its uneven look, its spread into beds, and the bees its flowers attract to play areas.
When is the best time to kill clover?
Fall is the best time to kill clover with herbicide. In cool-season areas, mid-September to early November works well. Spray on a calm day while clover is actively growing, and avoid days above 90°F.
How long does it take to get rid of clover in a lawn?
Hand-pulling and spot-treating clear visible clover within a few weeks. Feeding and higher mowing thin clover over one to two seasons. A lawn thick enough to keep clover out usually takes about a year.
Are clover mites the same as clover in my lawn?
No. Clover mites are tiny reddish mites that gather on sunny siding and windowsills. They don’t bite people or pets, and removing clover from the lawn won’t solve them. You need a pest guide instead.
A Thick, Well-Fed Lawn Keeps Clover Out
Clover is a sign of thin grass and hungry soil. Remove the clover by hand, with natural controls, or with a selective herbicide. Then feed the lawn, mow high, aerate compacted areas, water deeply, and seed every bare patch.
Feeding alone won’t fill the gaps between grass plants. Seeding alone won’t fix low nitrogen. A thick, well-fed lawn needs both, and that combination leaves clover no room to return.
Once the clover is cleared, close the gaps before it comes back. A GrowTrax roll puts grass seed, fertilizer, and mulch down in one pass, so the bare soil clover was using becomes thick, well-fed grass. Just roll, water, and watch it grow.