Top tips for planting bulbs in lawns?

Hi everyone

I've just bulk-bought around 500 bulbs which I'm planning to plant in my lawn near to the borders, up say 3 foot into the lawn. They're a mix of crocus, snowdrops, chionodoxa, and fritillary bulbs. Hopefully these sound the right sort of bulbs for lawn planting and enjoying them before the first mow!

I have a 'bulb planter' but I think this is for bigger bulbs and for use in soil. Not sure whether to try to lift whole chunks of turf and lay bulbs underneath, or just bore little holes and drop the bulbs in one by one...

I've never planted bulbs in lawns before so I was wondering if anyone had any top tips for getting the best results without destroying your lawn?

Thanks in advance

 

Hi wfw.
Normally when I plant bulbs in a lawn I just push a spade deep into the soil and then bend the spade back a little, plant the bulbs at the correct depth and then slowly slide out the spade. That way there is very little damage to your lawn where as the bulb planters would kill the grass above the bulb. Hope this helps.

 

The spade method is the way I do it as well . I also put a little multi purpose compost mixed with blood fish and bone into the spade slit to bed the bulbs onto. Hope your back will be OK after planting 500 bulbs !
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Just read Loofahs post - I may buy myself a bulb planter to try . I am planting some fritillaria and it may be a better method for these fragile bulbs.

 

Hi loofah,I suppose what I ment to say was the spade method causes less disturbance to the grass...in my experience.

 

The method I was shown was to take out a small square of grass with the spade put the bulbs in at different depths depedning onn what they like and then slice the bottom of of the the square of grass until it fits flush again with the ground.

It's highly unlikely that your manage to kill any of the grass using either of the methods mentioned.

 

Well I bought a bulb planter yesterday . It will be very useful in my flower beds when I plant tulips next month , but it wont look at my lawn . I can push it in about 1" , it has no chance of getting to 4" for the daffs . I used my spade as above to lift out sections or to split the turf, like I normally do
Planted 50 bulbs , I am very glad I am not planting 500 !!

 

I do what HYDROGEN said.

 

I heard you show throw the bulbs onto the ground to get a more natural look, and plant them where they land.

 

Hi everyone, thanks for all your tips!

We tried the spade method today- total nightmare as the lawn seems to have some sort of plastic netting underneath it which kept snagging as we tried to lift the turf up! Plus it's really rocky.

So after doing this in random squares for the crocus, we gave up... we tried a long handled bulb planter which was useless, as the soil got stuck in the tube and we couldn't get it out! We then tried a hand-held one which, when we learnt to twist it around rather than push down, actually did a pretty good job!

In the end it was only about 350 bulbs in the lawn. Job and a half. My poor mum helping me as well! Won't be doing that again any time soon!

Thanks everyone for your thoughts

 

Well done on a back breaking job!

I have planted my bulbs so randomly now I'm quite excited to see what surprises the spring will bring!

 

Sorry to be controversial, but why plant bulbs in lawns. We have a large communal space outside our rear garden fences, looked after by a ride on mower. Every year it cannot be properly mowed as it has to gingerly go round the clumps of daffodils, whch are still in full flower.

 

Hopefully the bulbs I've planted will all have finished by the time we need to mow the lawn- we haven't planted any daffs in the lawn. Also they're all at the edges near the borders, so even if we have to mow, we can just mow up the central strip and leave the flowers in the edges until they've finished.

Why? To make the lawn nicer, and because if we put them in the borders, they'll get swamped by other plants and also end up being dug up by mistake when we forget where they are!

 

When I first started gardening, I put grass seeds on all the soil in container plants...thought it would look better than soil :o