Planting bulbs underneath my lawn

[d000hg]

When we bought the house, the back lawn had one corner 'cut off' with a small bed. I dug this up and turfed over but each spring, a single daffodil pokes through the lawn in this area!

It's actually quite nice and I wondered if I can bury snow-drops, bluebells and small narcissus bulbs under the lawn throughout? The idea being that in early spring, before the lawn starts growing and isn't used for walking on, I'd get a beautiful 'woodland floor' effect. And then in the first cut of spring, they all disappear and I get my regular lawn back.

Is there any reason this would be a bad idea? When would I go about doing it?

I have a lawn-aerating tool which makes holes about 1cm wide and 10cm deep, which I plan to use at some point to improve drainage. I was thinking when I do that, I could drop a bulb down each hole (and then probably top up with sand to stop the hole collapsing.

Good plan?

[Scarlet]

Well, my lawn has already been cut and my daffs are still flowering. You can't cut down the foliage when the flower has died as the foliage feeds the bulbs for next year - you need to wait for it die back/ go brown. Lovely plan so long as you can mow around the dying greenery and not cut it off too soon.

[WendyC]

It is possible to have bulbs growing through the lawn and very pretty it can be too. Couple of points, you need to leave the leaves of the bulbs at least 6 weeks before cutting off so they have time to build up the bulb ready to flower again next year. I don't think you drainage holes will be wide enough to drop bulbs in. Easier is to cut an H shape in the turf and peel it back. Then you can plant the bulbs to the right depth, bearing in mind the thickness of turf and the put the turf back.

[Thelma Sanders]

You can underplant the grass, it's what I've been doing for a few years now - buying a couple of packs at a time.

This year I planted snowdrops in the green bought on ebay - still some on there, if you're quick.

Your 1 cm holes may just take a single snowdrop, but the other bulbs are a bit bigger I think. I put mine in a bigger size hole made with a bulb planter.

Here, the grass needs cutting before the bulbs have died down, so the part of the lawn that is underplanted can't be cut until they have, or they bulbs won't fatten for flowering next year.

[d000hg]

I guess daffodil bulbs are large, I thought snowdrops were tiny but that's a detail really. When would be a good time to plant, or does it not matter as the bulbs are smart enough to figure out when to grow?

[veggiechicken]

I have a patch of "lawn" under an apple tree that is full of bulbs. In order of appearance - snowdrops, crocus (the ?tommasianas), scilla, miniature daffs, bigger daffs and narcissi, primrose, bluebells.
I leave it to die back and it isn't cut until about June. Looks a bit of a mess then as the grass is growing through all the dead leaves and stalks. The first cut is a high cut and it looks like a patch of stubble - yellow and brown. Once the grass recovers, its mown with the rest of the lawn.
If you're happy to have an unsightly patch midsummer, do it. I wouldn't be without my spring flowers.

[d000hg]

Ooh, I'd forgotten crocuses. Have a few around the garden and they're already dying back - and it's not quite time for the first mow. So perhaps snowdrops and crocuses I can get away without a messy lawn - with it being a small town garden it needs to remain neat.

The other option is I do it (bulbs are cheap), cut it next year and see what survives. Any bulbs that can fit down aerator holes I can re-plant every year since I need to do that to the lawn regularly anyway, I suppose.

You see daffodils on grass verges a lot, especially in villages, but maybe they rely on the council not cutting the grass very often

[Jay22]

I tried to do this last year...even bought a bulb planter but my lawn is on clay soil so that when I went to plant the bulbs the ground was rock hard and I couldn't make a hole, then during the winter it's too soggy and squelchy so I guess it's a lost cause! I was going to plant clumps of daffs every few feet so that we could mow round them but hey ho!

[d000hg]

Our soil's pretty clayey but the tulips I re-planted did pretty well... a couple looked mould but seem to have grown this year regardless.

[Kristen]

Snowdrops perform (and look) better if planted in small clumps, rather than singles. I don't know if they prefer the company, or just look very forlorn if planted as singles.

Your real issue will be leaving the grass cutting long enough to let the bulbs recover. Personally I don't think replanting each year will be rewarding as I see one of the benefits being the bulbs making somewhat larger clumps over the years. Snowdrops will do it in 3 years or so (assuming you plant 3 or 4 per "station"), Daffodils are likely to take a decade.

My approach has been to plant the bulbs towards the back of the lawn, so that I can mow a clean "strip" in front of them, so that either a large area of the lawn is usable or so that there is a "tidy" strip in front of the shaggy grass containing the bulbs whilst they die down. Even once mowed, given that it is delayed until June or later, it still looks a mess as the grass looks very yellow whilst it recovers as it isn't mad about having so much cut off in one go!, particularly in dry summer years.

Concentrating on early flowering bulbs will help of course - you'll be able to cut the grass earlier. In the Snowdrop family there are cultivars that flower early - even as early as November - so you could choose some of those to extend the Snowdrop flowering season and maybe finish at, say, end of March (which is about when Snowdrops finish flowering here). Not sure how long they then need to die down - probably 6 weeks as already stated, so that's still mid May by which time the grass is going to be properly shaggy. Snowdrop foliage is not very long, so you could perhaps strim the grass to keep it to a modest length, and looking "managed" instead of shaggy!, without chopping the actual snowdrop foliage?

[WendyC]

Other than snowdrops, which are best planted in the green now, bulbs are available from August onwards.

[Martin H]

I tried this and regretted it. It looked nice for a week or two while the bulbs were in flower but then it looked a right mess until June when I could finally cut the grass.

From the second year I mowed the tops off and the bulbs diminished and mostly died.

I'm not going to do it again until I've got a big enough lawn so that I can just put the bulbs in some well-defined areas that are in view but not in the main places that my feet want to go. That way I can keep the bulk of the lawn cut properly it and enjoy walking on it in the spring.

[marchogaeth]

So much good advice here. Really it comes down to how relaxed about your lawn you are prepared to be. If you are happy to buy a little strimmer and not worry about neatness things like daffs and snowdrops will reward you hands down.

This is my "back lawn":-


The snowdrops are finished flowering now and a lot of the early daffs are finished. We planted this up over two seasons about 20 years ago. Green shoots appear in December (grazing stops well before this) and then there's no grazing until at least 6 weeks after the VERY last flower dies. (This ends me crazy every year but OH sticks out and I have to differentially fence bits off for my sheep.) The daffs have naturalised really well and spread like crazy from seed dispersal as well as in their clumps.

Our soil is very thin on this field and some of the bulbs were barely covered but they have dug themselves in over the years. The snowdrops had a very bad year this year for no obvious reason, the only thing we could think of is that it was very dry through most of last summer. We are too wet for crocuses but, when I retire, I am going to investigate other possible bulbs.

[Kristen]

I'm not going to do it again until I've got a big enough lawn so that I can just put the bulbs in some well-defined areas that are in view but not in the main places that my feet want to go. That way I can keep the bulk of the lawn cut properly it and enjoy walking on it in the spring.

I'm sure that's the right way, anything else is going to be "in the way".

Mowing a walking path through the bulbs (preferably not planting it in the first place!!) may be an option for some.

[Jay22]

That's a fab back lawn you have there marchogaeth! A bit cheeky to ask this I know but is that a tombstone you have in your garden?