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Clover 
For centuries, it's been used as a domesticated ground cover plant. Clover nourishes other plants around it, by making trace minerals accessible and by fixing nitrogen from the air (it's a type of legume).
Just a few decades ago, it was considered an essential part of lawns. Clover seeds were always included with grass in seed mixes.
Then agricultural chemical companies convinced everyone it was a weed that needed to be killed, so they could sell both herbicides and lawn fertiliser.
Ugh 
yes yes, lawns bad. Some of y’all are so predictable.
But
The modern version of lawns are monoculture wastelands, maintained by poisons, fertilisers, and fossil fuel powered blade machines. Those are undeniably terrible.
Lawns which actually support biodiversity of both plants and insects wouldn’t be nearly as bad. If people would get over their obsession with short trimmed homogenous grass, I wouldn’t hate them nearly as much.
tl;dr Don’t micromanage a lawn. Cultivate a tiny grassland.
@InvaderXan also if you MUST have flat greenery to walk on, \o/ MOSS LAWN \o/
@Nine Moss is very underrated!
@InvaderXan moss is friggin amazing and more people should appreciate it
The monoculture also makes the crops super susceptible to disease. I'm a big fan of every lawn that gets turned into a nice biodiverse garden.
@InvaderXan gosh, i would love clovers in my garden. I'm not found of the "lawn" look, but at the moment, with nettles and brambles, it's also a little bit "too wild" to enjoy the occasional stroll...
@shad Oh, both nettles and brambles do have their uses though. Nettle leaves can be cooked and eaten if you're careful while picking them (the ones in bright sunlight with purple stems taste best, ideally before they flower), and fresh blackberries are always good!
@InvaderXan ah, if only i had blackberries :'D
(english is not my first language so maybe i didn't use the right word for "bramble". It's basically an ever-growing bush of thorns.)
@shad In English, brambles ARE blackberry bushes. They ALSO happen to be ever-growing bushes of thorns. They do have a habit of taking over gardens, and gardeners always complain about them and try to kill them.
Honestly, I always thought it was odd the way some people will spend a fortune on poison to kill all the brambles in their gardens, and then pay more money for overpriced blackberries in shops.
@InvaderXan that's the idea behind "kill your lawn" as proposed by Tony Santoro. get rid of the zero carbon intake monoculture wasteland, replace with native plants that regenerate the soil and provide food for pollinators and such
@anarchiv It's a good philosophy. Natural grassland is essential habitat for a ton of species, many with deep roots which act as carbon sinks. If lawns were all replaced by little patches of native grassland, I'd be all for them. For some reason, people think nature is "unsightly" I guess.
@InvaderXan Also I think what makes grassland "lawn" is mowing which I have a lot of Feelings about. I had to mow part of my old garden because of allotment regulations (which are kind of tight here) but I used a scythe in order to not kill as many insects. Mechanical lawnmowers are also fine, and they don't even take a lot of physical strength to operate so I really don't get why electric or petroleum-powered lawnmowers are even a thing.
@anarchiv A combination of mowing and modern people's absolute hatred of "weeds", as far as I can tell.
And in many cases, not just mowing, but mowing so short that you can actually see bare soil. It especially upsets me when they mow down all the flowers.
@InvaderXan same. it seems so unhinged and folks don't seem to understand they're actively damaging their yard/garden.
@anarchiv I've probably ranted about this here before, but people in the UK do this a lot. A few years ago when I was living there, there was this one field near me where I walked sometimes. In late Spring, it would be just FULL of buttercups and looked really pretty. Then one day I arrived to find that someone had chopped it all so short that not even one flower had survived in the entire field.
Apparently, given the choice, some people prefer soil erosion to flowers.
@InvaderXan Germany too. There's this meme, like, "You're not dressing in 18th century clothing so why does your yard look like that"... it's all rooted (no pun intended) in this idea of domination over nature as a display of power that European nobility popularised and was then adopted by the petite bourgeoisie over the course of the Industrial Revolution
#Ethnobotany
@anarchiv Yeah, I know that meme, and I agree. As for the history of it... Ugh, don't get me started.
@InvaderXan I lowkey wanna get you started, though
@anarchiv Some other time, perhaps
) @InvaderXan do you maybe have access to some helpful printable material about this that one might accidentally lose a few copies of in their disgustingly rich neighborhood? definitely not for plant propaganda purposes.
@grainloom Sadly, no, but I'd be happy to make some plant propaganda sometime!
@InvaderXan what we have here is a weird mix of different seed bags we planted without much success though the years, and that didn't started to thrive until some weeds appeared.
Now we have a strangely controlled Bermuda grass, lush patches of clover with purple flowers, some sort of mutant stepping-resistant dichondra, lots of dandelion, plantain, morning glories, and even the occasional amaranth that got it's way outside the orchard.
@matias93 I watched a documentary once, where a farmer was explaining how aggressively killing off "weeds" was actively turning farmland barren. He explained how, from what he'd seen, the weeds are the land's own way of maintainin its health. If a field becomes overrun with weeds, that's the land trying to tell you there's a problem.
Which I thought was both an excellent description, and an affirmation of the worldview most indigenous peoples have.
Moved account, follow @lilov @InvaderXan
Lawn at home : mini wasteland (nah tbh it's just a bit too much bumpy but great diversity of "bad weeds", still no clovers :/ )
@baerd Dandelions are really useful on that kind of ground. They're pioneer plants, evolved to live in rough soil. Their roots are strong enough to break up the ground so other plants can grow, and deep enough to draw up nutrients which the other plants can't reach. Though pioneers take time to make the ground habitable for other plants.
@InvaderXan Joh's grandparents had the strangest lawn I've ever encountered. It was deep and plush and made of multiple grasses -- one of which I don't even know if it was a grass, it had multiple leaves on each frond, like tiny, soft ferns. They mowed it, but couldn't get at most of it because of the sheer depth and the way the top would fold and pack, protecting underneath.
I remember bringing it up and they complained about it but it was the most amazing lawn I'd ever encountered.
@InvaderXan it felt like a faerie lawn to me and it was wild to me that they didn't love it.
In the places where they let it grow, it was truly wild and strange. I wish the whole of their garden had been let to go wild.
@vicorva This sounds absolutely delightful, honestly! I always love patches of grassy wild land like this!
There was a place near where I was staying a few years ago which was full of grass that had been allowed to grow tall. It was waist height and I loved it. I used to lie down in it and read books there. Until someone mowed it all down one day. I was so annoyed...
@InvaderXan Oh that's lovely! There was a public park that was hill and woods near where Joh lived when we were teenagers and it was let to grow all spring until late summer except for some mown paths for people to walk down. If you sat in it for a while, animals would come up to you.
Saw adders approaching multiple times (or certainly, dark snakes that gently rustled the grass). Whenever they got close they would veer off, being peaceful creatures. Never seen them anywhere but that long grass.
@vicorva Wow, I’ve never actually seen an adder. Though I’ve seen several grass snakes and slow worms before. Lovely little beasts!
Any place which is full of nature is a good place, as far as I’m concerned!
@InvaderXan *barely* glimpsed them. They're so shy. At first I was concerned about being bitten but I'm pretty eager to see them these days! I think you'd have to step on one to be bitten and even then ...
Oh I *adore* slow worms. Such unique little critters!
And I completely agree. I wish more places were allowed to grow wild. Think we'd have better appreciation and connection to wildlife if we did.
If I ever have a garden, it's going to be as wild as I can make it. :)
@vicorva I figure, the fun thing about a garden would be to make it wild, but like, sculpted wild. Not so much controlling it, but more guiding how it shapes itself. Maybe making little spaces inside, with gazebos and tables, secluded by curtains of green...
@InvaderXan this sounds incredible. Extremely yes!
@vicorva @InvaderXan
Something I never understood was why my parents didn't want moss in their lawn.
This kind of nonsense happens when people never walk barefoot.
@InvaderXan IIRC the modern idea of a "lawn" evolved from the estates and manors owned by lords and the like, who had an army of servants to trim everything back with scythes.