By Treg
Last year we moved house and the lawn in our new place was a bit of a mess and had a too large bed in the centre and a border too. I painstakingly (I thought) turned it over, removing weeds and bucketsfull of tulip bulbs and hundreds of tiny white bulbs. I prepared the surface as recommended and purchased turf from a supplier I was recommended to. I kept well watered and was delighted with the result. However Spring is on its way and I am finding I did not take as many pains in removing bulbs as I thought. First of all snowdrops began to appear. I was not too disappointed as they look OK and I assume mowing will get rid of them when the time comes. But now tulip foliage is springing up all over and I suspect that mowing will take away the tops but leave the lawn unsightly. Can you suggest a way of getting rid of them short of digging out over a hundred bulbs and repairing the lawn. A few days ago I tried applying a Roundup gel to some but so far I can't see any effect. I thought I might try this again using a small paint brush in order to get a better coverage.
I am getting too old to spend hours on my knees so I would appreciate any help.
14 Mar, 2014
Answers
Why get rid of the bulbs? Snowdrops look great in the grass and none of them will cause any problem until grass cutting time. You then simply mow them down.
14 Mar, 2014
just keep mowing the lawn, and feed with (weed and feed) fertilizer
15 Mar, 2014
Weedkillers that you can buy over the counter will not touch bulbs, so don't bother getting down on your knees! Also don't castigate yourself - bulbs produce lots of little bulbils, and its practically impossible to extract all those when trying to clear them.
If you don't want the bulbs in the grass, you can either, as you say, painstakingly dig out the tulips, or just keep mowing, particularly while the foliage is present - if you don't allow the tulip bulb to keep its foliage, they will eventually give up the ghost. You will notice the denser clumps of cut foliage even after cutting the lawn though.
14 Mar, 2014