What is growing in my lawn?

[fellupthestairs]

Having never had a garden before, I have recently moved into a new-build house with a lawn.
Does anyone with more experience and knowledge than me know what this plant/weed is that’s growing all over it? And is there anything I can or should do about it?

Hopefully the photo is clear enough.

It looks like a kind of Vetch (basically a wild pea). Do you live near a Farm OP?Sometimes it is used to fix nitrogen into the soil over winter. If it is, it will have tendrils that hook onto other plants. Quite a nice flower I think.

You can always put it in a pot and await what happens! 🌱🌿🌸

It's a type of vetch - in the pea family. You can tell from the tiny tendril at the top trying to cling on to something. Not sure what species exactly, you may have to wait for the flowers (likely purple).

I leave them because I love the flowers, and my 'lawn' is more of a wildflower meadow. You'll have to mow around it if you decide to mow. You could try digging it up and moving it somewhere more suitable, but they have quite a long roots.

Ah. Thanks both. There will be no mowing around it or putting it in a pot I’m afraid - it’s allll over the lawn! Absolutely covered in it. We don’t have any other plants yet. I don’t want it taking over 😬
Planning to do our first ever mow of the lawn later this month and won’t be able to avoid it.
Weeding it out would be a really big job so not sure what to do.

It's green, it's fine, if you kill it by mowing just put down grass seed, if it survives call it a meadow not a lawn. All sorts come up in my meadow.

The idea of a meadow is lovely, and I will be putting in lots of wonderful and wild things for pollinators, but this is the first outside space of my own I’ve ever had (in my 50s!) and I really do want a lawn. It’s not big but it is too big for me to be pulling up all of these, there would be almost nothing left! But mowing and putting down more grass seed certainly sounds doable!

Yes it’s vetch. Frequent mowing may well eliminate it anyway. But you can get specific lawn weed and feed granules, or spray. That will kill off any broad leaved plants, and leave your lovely grass. (Mind you vetch is very pretty when it flowers)

I will look out for these granules or spray, thank you

Instead of pulling manually, how about using a rake and twisting them out like spaghetti? It's a useful technique for clingy/sticky plants like this. Do it 20 mins at a time and it'll be okay. It looks like there'll be plenty of grass left judging from that one photo?

And here i was blaming the squirrels for burying next doors peanuts in my lawn 😂

We have vetch in our lawn. Just mow it - ours just regrows (but we don't mow a lot, I expect if you keep your grass short it will gradually die out). DH is butterfly mad and the insects love vetches.
Vetches are members of the pea family which fix nitrogen in the soil, so it will probably help your grass grow. 😁