Sweet Clover For Cover and Screening

[MarkDarvin]

I've got some rows of spruce 20' apart and I'm considering getting something started in between or behind them to help speed up the screening process. I've kicked around the idea of planting a band of white and yellow sweet clover. It'd also help contribute to my pollinator habitat focus as well. What I'm wondering is, will I regret introducing it to the landscape? The farm guys say it can be hard to get rid of after establishment.

 

[THE LLC]

Will deer eat it?

 

[MarkDarvin]

From what I've read, it'll get a little attention, but for the most part it would get 4-8' tall and serve as quick cover, fantastic bee food, and stand up to winter snows fairly well. It would be mostly stems and flowers. There isn't much for food there. I believe this is the base stock for the common tumble weed out west.

 

[MarkDarvin]

Skip to the 1:00 mark and watch this video. I would think this would make fantastic cover and screen. I've been in fields of this stuff and it seems very easy to navigate as well. The only thing I'm really worried about is whether it could get out of control and take over.

 

[THE LLC]

Interesting. I know the deer in Nebraska don't seem to eat it but they don't eat wild sunflowers either. Yet when I planted some of those wild sunflowers here, my deer ate them to the ground. LOL. Deer being attracted to it would be my only concern.

 

[bigbluetruck]

Sweet clover is fairly common here in pastures, it used to be used as a cover crop back in the day. My dad says that my grandpa told about frost seeding it, and then when it came time to plow in the spring with the horses, you could hear the plow cut through the root.

Don't really consider it a weed here, as it really never "takes over" its an early spring crop, some years its more prevalent than others, just depends on the spring we have. It fixes quite a bit of N in a short amount of time, but it gets "rank" very quickly too, then nothing will eat it.

Here it never seems to get much over 4' tall, I guess Ive never paid much attention to it other than its just "there". I would think itd have to be planted pretty thick to make any kind of screen, as like you said its mostly just stems. If it wasn't here already, Id think about throwing it in a mix if I had something in there that needed something to climb, but for me Id use sunflowers instead.

Heres what they say about it. https://www.greencoverseed.com/product/1021/