How to do a bulb meadow in the lawn?

I can't figgure out how to do bulbs in the lawn. I have always planted bulbs in real gardenbeds and around mulched shrub areas. Its very cottage garden here and it is mulched just about everywhere. I actually have grassy pathways that are what is leftover of the lawn as the gardenbeds kept expanding. But I do have one open area of lawn left and I would like to keep it and not mulch or make it into gardenbed.

I could just see in my mind a sea of daffoldils, crocus, grape hyacith and maybe Iris reticulata and dutch iris. No tulips as that just seems like it shouldn't be in the lawn.

How to accomplish this? Do you just dig holes and plant directly in the grass? Seems like that might work for the really small bulbs but the daffs would have to go much deeper, harder to do. I always read plant daffs in drifts? Never figgured out how to manage that. Then it would look like who knows what when it was done with all the holes in the lawn.

Would all these bulbs come up thru the grass? They don't have any problems pushing thru the mulch around here. Would it better to stick to small bulbs like crocus and grape hyacinth?

I don't know the answer to your question, but I have some daffs that are miniature. Very cute, and small. They would look nice in a lawn.

I agree with you Lily, they do look nice.. I renovated my house 5 years ago and lost part of a flower bed to the newly shaped lawn. Now I have yellow crocus blooming like crazy in a part of the lawn that is over an old flower bed.

Rita, I thought about using a trowel or weeder tool to plant narcissus in my lawn. I figure I can neatly carve out a chunk of turf that way and carefully place it back over the bulbs to avoid holes in the lawn.

Dont bother if you use weed and feed on your lawn,the weed killer will kill your bulbs in the lawn.I planted 100s of crocus only to lose them to my weed and feed.I didnt even think about it killing my bulbs ,I should have known that,without thinking!! Just a heads up,dont want you to do what I did.i was very sad ={

Thanks but I don't use weed and feed on my lawn. I love my clover too much and I have plenty of that mixed in with the grass.

I don't use weed and feed on mine either, I would love to have a lush green lawn but it ain't gonna happen. My neighbors have weeds galore and I figure that as long as they don't get rid of theirs, it wouldn't be much use to try to get rid of mine. The other thing is my yard is so large there is no way I could keep up with it, plus the weed and feed is so expensive when you are doing a large area. The other thing is, my whole lawn is almost nothing but weeds, all I'd have left is mud! I don't have one iota of luck in growing grass either for some reason. So I have gave up on the lawn and just mow the weeds and they don't look too bad as long as it's mowed often. I don't care so much about the lawn as long as my flower beds look nice and the dl bloom well.
Also I just love those little tiny purplish blue flowers that bloom all over the lawn in the spring. Some kind of weed, but I love them. :)

Get some white clover, the low growing kind. Scratch up any bare spots and throw the seeds around. It will look much better than the weeds.

well that is mostly what I have lol
I don't like it, maybe it performs differently in your area, here it is very invasive and seeds like mad.
It grows by runners and gets in my beds and is very difficult to control. It forms dense mats and chokes out the other plants. Part of the reason I have given up on grass, the clover chokes everything out. But the rabbits love it, and so they eat that instead of my plants! I guess that is a plus! It does look nice though, and stays green. The other thing I have really bad is dandelions. I don't like those either!

Geez, your clover must be very different than mine. Stays low, doesn't really spread, never gets in the gardenbeds. Does not choke out the grass. Just looks pretty and behaves itself.

huh, well maybe it is not the same kind or the climate a little different or something. Our attracts bees really bad too when it blooms, I have to be careful not to let the kids out there unless I am with them, as the bees are really thick on the blossoms. I wish I had weeds that behaved themselves lol !

iam not one of those lush green lawn people,but I do weed and feed occasionaly,if I dont creeping charlie will absolutely take over the whole lawn,and flower gardens .and if I got to mow I dont want to be mowin dirt !!! i just didnt want anyone to learn the hard way,killing your crocus,with weed and feed.I love bulbs !!

No problem , I do know those dandelions are a real pest in the lawn, I am always digging some out!

I wonder if crocus bulbs multiply? I planted some last fall and they are lovely!
I would love to have more, I wondered if I wait a few years will they make more?

Other thing is, in the lawn, don't you end up having to mow the lawn before the foliage of the bulbs starts to die back?
I thought you were supposed to let the foliage die off naturally before you cut them off too short? how does that work in a lawn I wonder?

Well, that's the thing. The problem with the idea of planting the bulbs, like especially the daffoldils in the lawn, is that you have to wait for the folliage to die back. Meantime, you can't cut the grass.

Rita, our St Augustine grass grows on hard as a rock clay soil. Digging into it for bulb planting is too much work. So, we built raised beds right on top of the lawn, planted bulbs and presto! Bulbs bloom from Feb - April. We'll wait til early June to mow and we'll have neat lawn all over again. The price for a daff meadow is an unsightly area for about 6 weeks but I'm willing to do that.

If I had perfectly manicured lawn with nary a weed, I doubt we would have the stomach to plop soil right on top of it. So this may not be a project for everybody.

The very first patch we built, we actually tilled amendments onto soil but even that was too arduous with clay soil. On subsequent patches we just dropped the amendments right on top, leveled to about 6-8" high and planted bulbs. I see no difference whatsover in tilled vs no till patches, so guess what: we're not tillling!

I hope this helps you. We have a long way to go but we're beginning to see the fruits of our "limited" labor.

My soil here is easy to dig into. And I could not raise the lawn, it would really look aweful. So if I did this, I would have to dig. I have plenty of time yet to think on this as it would be a fall project so we will see.

the older raised beds are eventually flattening out and when DH mows the lawn looks fine but I have to say that when beds are intially created the lawn looks lumpy. Most definitely not pretty but over time, we hope it will be.

I would love to have Daffodils in my lawn but they have to be very early flowering as my DH doesn't have patiences enough to let the foliage die before cutting the grass. Does anyone have suggestions for early flowering daffs?

Daff foliage lasts FOREVER here.