planting spring bulbs in a lawn

Hi all,

Does anyone here plant spring bulbs in their lawn? It obviously adds a lot of colour to a dull time. I'm thinking of tulips or crocus

Is there any effects to the lawn or does the grass simply fill the holes left by the bulbs?

 

I have bulbs in my lawn, only downside is you cannot mow. Need to leave them after they have flowered till they die back naturally so they can build up reserves for next year . Lawn will look untidy till then. When you mow there is very little sign of where thay have been and lawn soon thickens up.

 

Hi I have loads of Snowdrops Daffodils and Crocus in my "lawn" (mostly moss!). Apart from maybe the small species Tulips I'm not too sure how Tulips would do/look planted in a lawn, personally I wouldn't.
Once the leaves of the bulbs have died down you won't know the bulbs have been there. The only thing you do have to be patient about is not to mow down the leaves of the bulbs until they have started to die back (tips of the leaves start to go brown). The bulbs need to have their leaves intact to produce enough energy to flower again the following year.

 

I've grown crocuses and daffs (minidaffs 'jet fire') in the lawn and they've worked really well. So well infact that i'm thinking of buying 100's of Jetfire in bulk for the front lawn. The daffs have been brilliant and make good cut flowers.

Warning though, i have heard that Tulips don't work very well in a lawn.
As with any bulbs you have to let the grass grow round then for 6 weeks after flowering so that the bulbs get enough energy to flower again next year. It does look messy for a short time but the overall effect is good and the lawn returns to normal afterwards.

i found the best way to plant them is to lift up the turf, put the bulbs down and then put the turf back down. then start on the next section.

All the best TND

 

I have loads of early daffs, crocus, and blue star (something). I have no issue with the mowing stuff. As all appear and die down well before my grass is ready to mow. When picking these type of bulbs, get the kind that say "natualizer" this means they pop babies every year and then you have more and more every year. I would not go for the tulips, as usually they are later. (even the early ones are later that the three mentioned above.)

 

I have daffodils in my lawn. I made the mistake of planting them alongside my drive and most people that call at my house walk straight across them instead of using the path, they break all the tips down just as they are sprouting. I have to put a sign up as soon as I see them above ground now.

 

I think the later flowering of Tulips, compared to Daffs, would be the issue. The grass might be getting messy by the time they flower and that would detract .

I have plenty of Daffs in my lawn, but they are in an area of the lawn that I can leave "scruffy" after flowering until the tops die down before I mow it. Forgotten when, but I would think it is the end of June before I cut the grass down, and then I mow it normally after that, but in a dry June it then stays yellow for some time.

 

Thank you all for your responses and advice!

i think i may give this a go when it comes around to planting bulbs. I'll go for the crocus and leave the tulips.

think i might go for a clump instead of spreading them out

thank you again people!!

 

Good idea. Only a suggestion which can give the natural look is to get a handful of bulbs and just drop them on the ground and plant where they land Nature doesn't tend to have things in neat rows and usually we make a better job of things when following Mother N's example! Personally I think it looks better to have a fair number of the same variety of Daffodil rather than a huge mixture, but others on here may well disagree.IF the weather ever improves I will be splitting some of mine, if you are ever anywhere near where I live (Fife) you'd be more than welcome to my considerable surplus!

 

My bulbs start coming up from now until end of May and then come the Alliums. Each type of bulb, was planted in each area with the thoughts of when they would appear, the height, and their area relative to what is around them, sun/shade, other plants.

So you can have a mixture of bulbs in one area, if you select an "early" bulb, then a mid-season one, then a late one.

So that area always has something coming up. (I know many of your gardens are on a small size, to this idea will give you more bang for the buck)

Right now, my early crocus and snow drops are up, yes then there is the later crocus, and early daffs are up, the mid-early daffs are in the green about 2 inches, not quite ready yet. And so on.

I also prefer to no lines or rows with bulbs, but rather a general happenstance of a gathering of flowers. But, in some areas I do large irregular circles of daffs. Love the tall Allums peeking out among bushy plants.