Bulbs & Weed Block

Hi there,

I have a new planting area that I just dug up and put a bunch of spring flowering bulbs in, now I'm looking out my window and seeing millions of little grass blades popping up everywhere. DH keeps telling me to put weed block down, but I'm afraid that it will block out the bulbs, too. Am I right or will they punch right through?

Thanks in advance with your help with a fairly novice question.

Kristin

I wouldn't be concerned. I've plants thousands of crocus, muscari,scilla, hyacinth, iris, minature daffies, species tulips and puschkinia in the lawn. Where the lawn is ratty, I remove the sod and work grass seed and clover into the soil. It is amazing how bulbs push up though sod that has been there decades (I peel off layers of it, prepare the soil underneath, put in the bulbs and replace the sod--trimming off some of the roots but not all).

If you're doing a flower bed, you might want to toss some mulch on the dirt. Don't know how much in your zone. Not a lot I would think. I put in a 35' row of tulips last year with no mulch on top. Grass and weeds grew in the row but the tulips had no trouble popping through and the lack of mulch didn't hurt them either.

I'm not familar with Weedblock but if it's a landscape fabric they won't come through in my experience. Organic mulch as DP suggests would be a good choice.

Cool. I'll go for mulching, then. That was my gut feeling, as well, but DH seemed to think they'd push on through the weed block (or landscape fabric). :)

So I gather it is okay to mulch bulbs as opposed to iris rhizomes? I was just pondering whether to mulch my newly planted ones today.

I mulch with leaves like crazy paj as its so dry here. They help to retain moisture.

Thanks that is good to know. Right now, my recently planted bulbs have lots of leaves and pine needles on them -- a nice fluffy mulch.