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We introduced a ton of clover into our lawn 4 years ago and have been letting it self-seed & spread. It's been great.
My boomer-y neighbors don't like it and make comments, but ours is the only green lawn for several blocks because it hasn't rained for shit all summer. Plus we have wildflower areas so we also have all kinds of bumblebees, butterflies, and dragonflies cruising around.
We've tried both clover and thyme, but we can't get them to really take off. But I think we just weren't doing enough at a time and wildlife was eating it all. Our current course of action has been killing sections of grass with a tarp, then planting the clover and our first patch is doing well.
You do need to water it pretty aggressively at first, or be lucky and have daily rain for about a week. ALSO, the first year is kinda underwhelming in general. It really tool off in subsequent years for us. This is our fourth (I think?) year of the clover lawn and it's really nice now.
Good luck with yours!
A tick wrote this post
Yea a lot of people are clueless to how much of an effect lawns have on keeping pests away from the house. Mice love living in tall grass while using your house as a buffet and bathroom.
A colorful biodiverse lawn is nice and all, but I'd prefer not to be harassed by all my neighbors, eaten alive by bugs, and be unable to use the lawn for anything other than looking at and feeling smug.
That's funny because that's exactly how lawns were created - to showcase that lords were wealthy enough to waste land rather than use it for food production. it's essentially the 'smash a bottle of expensive champagne challenge' of the feudal period.
I showed this to my city's By-law officer. No luck...
It might help to make it look more intentional, such as a bordered flowerbed with native plants in it that just happens to be the size of most of your front lawn.
I hate lawns. They suck water like nothing, require a lot of work and never look quite the way you want.
But let's keep things in perspective here. The big argument against lawns is water use. I agree. But in California, for example, all residential water use accounts for less than 15% of the total use of water in the state.
If we want to save the environment we should start with what's taking the remaining 85%.
If you dont atleast have 1 part of your garden unmowed youre a weirdo with bad taste to me