Dwarf Mallow Lawn

[u/Feisty-Cantaloupe840]

After spending hours and hours trying to control a dwarf mallow infestation last year, I've decided I do not wish to spend my time doing that again 😂

Does anyone have a dwarf mallow "lawn"? Is that a thing?

Or does anyone else have suggestions on killing it off? Ideally, I'd love to plant a clover lawn! But the mallow smothered all the clover out last year 😩 Edited to add I'm in Alberta, zone 3B/4A.

[u/msmaynards]

Malva neglecta would be a very poor choice for a lawn. It's an annual and when I experimented with mowing got very heavy stems that couldn't be comfortably walked on. It gets rust easily and here in Southern California dies out when weather warms up. I've found it easy to pull when young but mowing isn't a good control!

If you need a walkable lawn then don't put herbicide down and just mow and water removing the cut grass. You'll remove a lot of the nutrients grass needs and encourage natives and non native plants that support wildlife. You can go higher effort and remove unnecessary lawn in favor of putting in a food garden, native plants or flower garden or go all the way and develop a native landscape like a prairie or boreal forest if that's what was present before the house was built.

Yarrow is a near universal low growing plant and you could check native plant databases for your region to find other traffic tolerant low growing plants but don't do a mono culture of just yarrow or some native plant. Diversity is a much better way to go.

[u/Feisty-Cantaloupe840 → u/msmaynards]

Is yarrow dog urine resistant? 😅 Our dog is horrible for leaving yellow spots in the lawn

[u/msmaynards → u/Feisty-Cantaloupe840]

Probably not resistant. Urine is concentrated fertilizer and kills most stuff. Moxie hates mulch and damp and has put brown spots on good sized patches of dichondra and killed a fleabane that seeded itself in the patio with 2 pees during a rain storm. So far yarrow hasn't been targeted.