Naturalizing Bulbs: Growing on Your Turf

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Robert J. Dolezal

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Early spring-blooming bulbs are great for naturalizing in lawns and decorative grass plantings. You can even plant daffodils as along as you’re willing to hand-trim the surrounding grass.

If you’ve ever seen an early spring yard covered in drifts of beautiful crocuses or snowdrops, you know what an amazing sight it is. These early signs of spring – bringing hope for greener things to come – help even the hardiest of gardeners get through yet another winter.

These scenes of springtime lawns in bloom are stunning in their simplicity and alive with so much color. Some gardeners stick to drifts of a single type of bulb (like crocus). Others revel in adding a variety of species to their yard, giving the impression that the plantings erupted spontaneously from the soil at the gardener’s beckon. Of course, the blooms aren’t at all spontaneous – in fact, there’s plenty of planning and planting involved. But overall, achieving this beautiful show of early spring color right from your lawn isn’t too difficult.

The process of planting bulbs in this manner is called “naturalizing.” At its most basic definition, it simply means planting bulbs informally. You can simply throw markers over your shoulders with your eyes closed and let the chips fall where they may to give your planting a completely random broadcast that mimics nature’s “patterns.”

The most important step in naturalizing is picking the right bulbs. It’s important to select only those species hardy in your climate (that way you can avoid having to lift and store scores of bulbs hidden in your turf each season). If you live in a cold-winter climate, naturalize early blooming spring bulbs in your lawn. By the time the grass requires mowing, glory-of-the-snow, snowdrop and squill will be entering dormancy, so you can safely cut the foliage and still be sure they’ve stored enough food until next spring.

Once you’ve got the right bulbs, you’re ready to start planting. Gatherstakes and string, a turf cutting tool, tarp, fertilizer, your bulbs (and their planting-depth information) and a bulb-planting tool and just follow the steps shown in the pictures and described in the captions to get started.

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Step 1: Mark where you want to plant your bulb drifts or accents using stakes and plastic garden tape (or string).

Tips

If you’ve got areas in your garden that fill in with perennials or other plantings later in the season, consider these spaces for naturalizing spring bulbs, too. They’ll give a great boost to your early garden!
For summer bulb plantings, choose species that bloom before or after perennial plants, shrubs and trees in the garden. Flowering cherry, evergreen pear and azalea, for example, finish blooming just as Spanish bluebell, lily and reticulated iris begin their month-long displays.

Faqs

Q: What are some good bulbs to include in turf?
A: Bunching bulbs, like bluebells, grape hyacinth and snowflake, make great lawn selections.
Q: Can I plant bulbs that bloom later in the season in my turf?
A: Sure – the only problem is that your grass is more likely to come out of dormancy as spring weather warms, so mowing can become an issue. The solution is to keep the bunches of late bloomers (like tulips) in small areas you’re willing to hand-trim around. Or you could create areas of ornamental or native grasses that generally don’t need mowing and include some late blooming bulbs in the mix. (This is also a nice way to incorporate summer- and fall-blooming bulbs in your turf.)

Tools

If you’re fortunate enough to have loose soil in your yard, a drill auger made for planting bulbs will make fast work out of digging holes. Simply attach it to your cordless drill and make each hole a little deeper than the bulb’s required planting depth.

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