Care for a lawn underplanted with bulbs?

Hi everyone,

A while back I decided it'd be a great idea to stick some crocus and other bulbs around the borders of my lawn (fritillaria and chionodoxa I think.) The crocus have come up 2 years running now, we get the odd chionodoxa, and I've never seen a fritillary, although we do seem to have some rogue muscari that have come out of nowhere and I've not seen in previous years- maybe because I was sent the wrong bulbs and we've never noticed because we've usually cut the lawn by now...?

We also have an extreme number of dandelions, despite me digging them all out last year with some large thing that looked like an instrument of torture. They all came back with a vengeance so I went a bit nuts yesterday and roundupped the lot of them, so may have killed off a bit of the lawn too. (When I later read the back, it did say don't use on lawns...) Which leads me on to my actual question:

How should I care for a lawn that has bulbs underneath it? It's getting more mossy as time goes on, and bare down the middle where it gets walked on. Aside from the weeds I can dig out or pick out one by one, it's got a fair bit of clover and stuff with little white flowers. I was thinking of getting something like EverGreen Complete, but will it end up killing my bulbs if it touches some of their leaves after I've mowed the lawn but before they've fully disappeared?

What other things should I be doing to keep the lawn moss and weed free, that's ok on top of bulbs?

Thanks in advance!

 

Round-up was rather harsh, sorry to say you will lose that part of the lawn. It's a systemic killer which kills right down to the roots and will kill just about anything it touches.

An ordinary Weed, Feed and Moss killer will do the job for you on the lawn and it won't harm your bulbs. I have a few hundred daffodils in my front lawn and they put on a wonderful display every year with no damage from weed killers.

Although you've dug out the 'crop' of dandelions if you leave part of the root in it will reshoot. Also, there will still be dormant seeds in the soil that will germinate, so you really have to keep working away at them with a weed killer until they stop growing. Make sure you don't let the flowers on them go to seed, they can be mowed off if necessary.

Keeping a lawn weed and moss free is hard work, if you look at the 'Lawns' section of GC you will probably find threads there to help you.

 

Thanks Sheal. Here's hoping I've not killed off half the lawn. I did only put a tiny squirt on each dandelion! Fingers crossed.

We used some of the '4 in one' lawn care stuff today so hopefully that'll help with the other weeds, as well as perking the lawn up in general. Will check out the lawns section. Thanks!

 

How about trying the new Roundup Gel.


http://www.roundup-garden.com/roundup-gel