Planting bulbs in lawn/grass

[brianw]

I am going to plant a number of bulbs in a rough area of grass. 200 or so. The soil is compacted and stony so the thought of lifting the "grass" is not very appealing. I have seen that augers are sometimes used with an electric power drill. The Crocus plant company sell what looks quite open spiral tools, but I was wondering about using standard wood or masonry augers which are much more robust solid tools and can be fairly cheaply bought. I will probably do some levelling and reseeding etc. at the same time.
Any comments or experience in planting this way?

[Rick R.]

I think you will find that a wood or masonry auger/bit will reduce the soil to "powder" (or at least much more so than a soil auger).  Destroying the soil structure wouldn't be a good thing to do.  A wood auger would also dull quickly in soil, especially stony soil, and compound the situation.

When I was the head gardener at a prestigious golf club, we planted thousands of (mostly) tulip bulbs every fall with an auger.  Even with that soil auger, frequent sharpening of the cutting edge made a big difference in its efficiency.  But, I can't say how old that auger was when I first started using it; the hardened steel surface may have already worn away.

[brianw]

Well a masonry drill works fine for planting. I bought a cheap 1" diameter 14" long drill bit. Think it will last longer than me. I could mostly wiggle it round big stones or to open up the hole, but where necessary you just move the hole until you can get in. Only problems was my 50 year old extension lead has an intermittent fault apparently and the drill started smoking after ~250 bulbs. Can't be sure all are the right way up ;-)
Rick. Powder is not a feature of usually very damp gardens in the UK.
I filled the holes with a sand composted bark mixture so I knew where I was, but intend to do some levelling anyway with extra soil and grass seed.

[fastbat]

I just use my shovel at an angle, lift the lawn, throw several corms under, then put the grass top back on.  Last year I rented a sod cutter.  I planted 2,000 tommie corms.  I wish I would have just used the shovel and handful of corms method.  This year I planted way more corms with the simple shovel way.  I try to plant for about an hour or two a day, so we will see how it looks this spring.  My  lawn is an old meadow, woodsy area, that has never been treated with chemicals.  The grass is a sparse mess, that's why I'm trying for a "crocus" lawn.

[brianw]

I rarely use a shovel, except where I have previously dug it over; too many stones/flints in the soil. I was a bit perturbed that the drill often stopped cutting at roughly the same depth in several patches. I assume this is the natural level the stones sink to as turf and weeds etc. grow on land that is uncultivated. The land was an orchard for around 50 years before being built on recently and farmland before that. As a farm gate used to be in the corner of the plot it was probably well compacted by animals or farm vehicles.

[brianw]

Did you see in Gardener’s world Monty adding herbaceous plants to his cricket pitch alley/allée ?
I can see this might look good if done with the correctly timed plants but little mention of how he was going to maintain it later. I guess he might just leave a central strip clear and clear mow in late summer rather than after the bulbs finish.

My area of grass I underplanted with numerous bulbs worked Ok this year; the only thing I waited for in one area before mowing was the seed capsules of Tulipa sylvestris. Thinking of adding more aconites this year and some anemone blanda, or similar. I think some scillas of some sort might creep in too. I will “drill” plant again as it was so easy, hoping I miss most of what is already there. Probably easier than adding plug plants when in leaf. Camassias have been used in some street plantings locally amongst the daffodils. Not sure about trying the shorter forms of them. My only problem so far is forgetting how early the dozen or so Narcissus bulbocodium would leaf up. They got cut back a bit in the last grass mowing a few weeks ago. I have marked them with some sand now hoping I can cut again once or twice this autumn and miss them. Fortunately they are all at one end.

Any suggestions welcome. Not difficult to find flowering times of most things, leafing seeding times more difficult. Still spot weeding broadleaf plants with weed killer occasionally. It’s sticky stony soil over chalk, full sun in summer, mornings only in winter.

[Carolyn]

Try Frit meleagris. A friend of mine has them growing in rough grass and they look stunning.

I tried scilla sibirica and some chinodoxas in grass, following a recommendation from Trevor Jones, who has planted these under flowering cherries at Alnwick Gardens. I thought it was a lovely idea, but the said bulbs failed to do well, although they thrive elsewhere in my garden.