Whitney Keller

Todd McDonald wrote:I've used the mini clover from outside pride mentioned above. I seeded some into a 20ft section of a raised bed last spring to see how it would work. So far it has performed as advertised, stays very short and not very aggressive. Now that its established I'll keep an eye on it to see if it tries to spread.

Regarding white clover, at least in my area (central Missouri zone 6), I have observed that white clover comes up early in spring, then gets knocked back a little in the summer heat and returns again in the cooler fall temps. It would seem ideal in the role of permanent ground cover so that's why I am giving it a try. 3 years ago I tried red clover and can confirm that this plant is too tall and too aggressive to use as a ground cover for an annual vegetable garden, it's great around fruit trees and pastures though.

Do you think red clover or crimson clover would work if you flail mowed it and then planted directly into the mulch? I am trying to decide what kind of ground cover/cover crop to use to suppress weeds when establishing a permanent beneficial flower bed.

Hello all! First post to permies!

I am currently working as a market gardener and we are trying to set up permanent perennial flower beds in our garden to attract beneficials. We are planning on starting some flowers from seed to transplant into the bed, and other flowers/herbs we would like to experiment with direct seeding. To compete with weeds, we were thinking about using crimson clover as a cover crop and then flail mowing it and transplanting into the mulch. Would this work? What about direct seeding into the mowed clover? Ideally we would like to go ahead and add a cover crop asap before the spring weeds. Any other recommendations as to what we could seed into the beds?  Right now they are covered with leaf mulch.

Should we go for a lower growing clover like white dutch? Would this work both for transplanting and direct seeding?

I've attached the rough plan for which flowers we want to grow.