How to Get Rid of Clover in Your Lawn

Use a selective broadleaf herbicide that contains triclopyr, because plain 2,4-D alone barely touches clover, its waxy leaf gives it moderate resistance. For a Long Island homeowner, the best and most affordable pick is Ortho Weed B Gon Chickweed, Clover and Oxalis (8 percent triclopyr), which is literally named for clover, lists it on the label, and is legal and sold in Suffolk County. Mix it at 1 fluid ounce (2 tablespoons) per gallon of water, which covers 200 square feet, and do not add a surfactant since it already contains one. For thick or stubborn clover, step up to Monterey Spurge Power, a three-way of MCPA, triclopyr, and dicamba that hits it from several angles. Spray on a calm day between 60 and 85 degrees when the clover is actively growing, ideally in fall, and repeat in 2 to 3 weeks if any survives. But here is the key that most people miss: clover grows where grass is underfed, so after you kill it you must feed the lawn nitrogen, otherwise new clover simply moves back into the hungry turf.

Almost always because your lawn is low on nitrogen. White clover is a legume, which means it pulls its own nitrogen out of the air and does not depend on the soil the way grass does. So in a nitrogen-starved lawn, clover has a built-in advantage: it stays lush and green while the underfed grass goes thin and pale, and it spreads into the weak spots. An easy way to confirm this is the plug test: dig up a small plug that contains both grass and clover, and if the grass looks pale and thin next to dark, vigorous clover, your lawn is nitrogen-deficient. This is why clover is often called an indicator weed, its presence is a symptom of a fertility problem, not a random invasion. It also explains why spraying alone never fully works: if you kill the clover but leave the soil hungry, new clover germinates right back into the same weak turf. The lasting fix is to feed the lawn so dense, healthy grass out-competes clover, which it will do on its own within a season or two once it is properly fed.

Fall, specifically September into October, is the best time to spray clover, and the reason is rooted in how the plant behaves. In fall, clover is actively pulling nutrients down into its root system to store energy for winter. When you apply herbicide during that window, the plant carries the chemical down into its roots along with those nutrients, which kills the entire plant, roots and all. A spring application, by contrast, often only burns off the top growth, and the surviving roots push up fresh leaves within a few weeks, so it looks like the herbicide failed. Beyond the season, spray when the clover is actively growing and daytime temperatures are between about 60 and 85 degrees, and avoid spraying during a heat wave (over 90 degrees) or a drought, because a stressed plant takes up very little herbicide. Give it a calm day with no rain expected for 24 hours so the herbicide can be absorbed. And plan to feed your lawn afterward, since fall is also the most important time to put nitrogen down on a Long Island cool-season lawn, which does double duty by helping grass reclaim the space.

It will come back if you only spray and never address why it was there in the first place. Clover invades lawns that are low in nitrogen, because as a legume it makes its own and out-competes underfed grass. So if you kill the visible clover but leave your lawn hungry, new clover simply germinates back into the same weak, thin turf, and you are back where you started. To keep it gone, you have to pair the kill with a feed. After you spray, put nitrogen down (a nitrogen-forward fertilizer like a 16-0-0 is ideal), overseed the bare spots the dead clover leaves behind so grass fills them instead of new weeds, and mow tall (3 to 4 inches) so your grass shades out low, creeping clover. A properly fed, dense lawn is essentially clover-proof, and it will crowd clover out on its own within one or two growing seasons. The short version: kill it, then feed it, and it stays gone.

That is genuinely a personal choice, and clover has real upsides worth knowing before you spray. Because it fixes its own nitrogen, clover feeds the soil and can green up a lawn during drought when grass goes dormant, and its flowers are excellent for pollinators like bees. For those reasons, deliberately mixing microclover into a lawn has become a popular low-input, sustainable choice, and some people are happy to leave it. So killing clover is a choice, not a requirement. That said, plenty of homeowners want a uniform grass lawn, dislike the bee traffic near play areas, or simply do not like the look of clover patches, and all of those are perfectly valid reasons to remove it. If you do want it gone, this guide's approach (kill it with a triclopyr product in fall, then feed the lawn) is the reliable way to do it. If you are on the fence, remember that the same fix that removes clover, feeding your lawn well, is good practice either way, so you can start by feeding and see whether you even mind the clover that remains.