How do I naturalise bulbs in grass?

Naturalising means letting bulbs settle into grass and increase on their own, which they will do given the right species and the right mowing regime. The mowing is the whole difficulty: a lawn that must be cut in April is not a lawn you can naturalise bulbs in, and the honest first decision is whether you are willing to leave an area rough until midsummer.

What you'll need

• Bulb planter, a trowel, or a spade for turf lifting
• Bulbs suited to naturalising
• Bucket for the scattering method (optional)
• Kneeler

Step by step

1. Decide which area you are prepared to leave uncut until June.This is the real constraint. An area under a tree, along a boundary, on a bank or in a rough corner works well. The middle of a lawn used by children in May does not.
2. Choose species that genuinely naturalise.Daffodils, especially the smaller and wilder types; crocus; snowdrops and winter aconites; snake's head fritillary in damp grass; camassia; wild and species tulips. Large hybrid tulips and big showy daffodils do not naturalise well and look wrong in grass anyway.
3. Match the bulb to the ground conditions.Snake's head fritillaries want damp meadow; crocus and species tulips want free-draining sunny turf; snowdrops and aconites want the damper shade under deciduous trees. Bulbs planted in the wrong conditions dwindle rather than spread.
4. Scatter to get a natural distribution.Take a handful and throw them gently across the area, then plant each one roughly where it lands. Adjust only the obvious collisions. Planting in a pattern or an even spacing always reads as planted.
5. Plant at three times the bulb's own height.Use a bulb planter that takes a plug of turf and soil, drop the bulb in, and put the plug back on top. Alternatively lift a flap of turf with a spade, plant a group underneath and fold it back.
6. Plant in drifts of one species rather than mixtures.A drift of one daffodil looks like it has always been there; a mixture of six varieties looks like a bulb catalogue. Vary the density, thinning out at the edges of each drift.
7. Do not mow until at least six weeks after the last flower.The foliage is rebuilding the bulb. This is the difference between a display that increases every year and one that fades away. In practice the first cut is late May or June.
8. Make the first cut high, and take the clippings off.Cut on a high setting to avoid shredding the remains of the bulb foliage, and rake up and remove the clippings. Removing them gradually reduces the fertility of the turf, which suits both the bulbs and any wildflowers.
9. Feed the bulbs, not the grass.A high-potash liquid feed over the area while the bulb foliage is green helps them. General lawn fertiliser makes the grass more vigorous and increases the competition.
10. Let them get on with it.Established naturalised bulbs need nothing else. They increase by offsets and, in the case of crocus, fritillaries and aconites, by seed as well, which is why the mowing timing matters — the seed needs to ripen and fall.

Tips

• Snowdrops and winter aconites are far more successful planted in the green, in leaf, in spring than as dry bulbs in autumn.
• Mow paths through a naturalised area while the rest grows long. It makes an unmown patch look deliberate rather than neglected and lets you walk through it.
• Crocus in grass are a superb early nectar source and are one of the easiest things to naturalise, but squirrels and mice take a proportion in the first autumn. Plant generously.
• Bulbs under deciduous trees usually thrive because they finish before the canopy closes. Under evergreens or conifers, they rarely establish.

Common mistakes

• Mowing at the normal first cut of the season — It removes the foliage weeks before the bulbs have finished, and a naturalised planting mown early every year steadily disappears.
• Planting large hybrid tulips or big trumpet daffodils in a meadow — They neither naturalise nor look right. Smaller and wilder types settle in and increase.
• Planting in even rows or evenly spaced — It never looks natural and no amount of subsequent spread hides it. Scatter and plant where they land.
• Feeding the area with lawn fertiliser — Vigorous grass out-competes the bulbs. Feed the bulbs specifically while their leaves are green, and take the clippings off.

Questions people ask