Meadows are trendy alternatives to big lawns these days as much of the gardening public aims to aid pollinators and beef up their yards’ native-plant inventory.
For most, that means planting or seeding former lawn space with an array of annual and perennial flowers, a smattering of native ornamental grasses, and maybe a few native flowering shrubs.
But anyone who’s grown a meadow knows the style is notoriously slow to get started in spring. It takes weeks for the reseeded annuals to sprout, for the dormant perennials and grasses to come back to life, and for flowers to actually appear.
In a typical meadow, it’s June and later before the bulk of the plants hit their stride.
An under-used way to get the color going sooner is by adding clusters of spring-blooming bulbs to the bed.
Bulbs such as daffodils, hyacinths, and alliums shoot up earlier than all of the above, flower in that April-through-May time frame, and then die back into summer dormancy as the “traditional” meadow plants fill the space.
For those who like a lot of bulbs and prefer that loose look of a meadow, a whole springtime meadow bed can be planted out of nothing but mixed spring-flowering bulbs.
Yet a third meadowy way to use bulbs is to plant short, early ones directly in the lawn. The bulbs poke up and flower before the lawn gets going, then the foliage can be mowed off as it starts to yellow.
Let’s look at the options…
Bulbs such as tulips can be interplanted with perennial flowers, which are just emerging as the tulips are already blooming.George WeigelOption 1
Adding bulbs to an existing meadow is fairly easy since the ground is already dug.
Once the annuals and perennials die back in fall, simply insert bulbs between the perennial clumps and dead/dying annuals.
Mid to late October is ideal timing, but bulbs can go in the ground in southcentral Pennsylvania through the first two weeks of November as well — and sometimes even later if the ground isn’t frozen.
Taller bulbs work best in meadows, such as tulips, daffodils, hyacinths, alliums, summer snowflakes, and crown imperials.
Note that although most of those are of at least some interest to some pollinators, they’re not native species.
One of the best bulb bets if you’re trying to go as native as possible is camassia, a May bloomer with spiky blue flowers.
Another is brodiaea (also known as triteleia), which produces star-shaped flowers of purple, white, or blue-purple from May into June.
Because bulbs tag-team nicely with summer flowers, you might not need to give the bulbs any care after planting. If you don’t mind some yellowing and browning bulb foliage for a few weeks, just let the foliage die back naturally as the growing summer flowers and grasses increasingly hide it.
Daffodils, alliums, and camassia are the three best bulbs at returning reliably year after year.
This bulb-only garden is loaded with varieties that all bloom at about the same time.Netherlands Flower Bulb Information CenterOption 2
A “bulb meadow.” This uses the same let-nature-be-nature principle as a traditional flower meadow, except in this case, all of the plants are bulbs.
Rather than plant bulbs in patterned blocks or neat rows as most gardeners do, the technique here involves tossing handfuls of mixed bulbs onto the ground, then planting each where they land.
The result is a garden that has the loose look of a meadow, except that it’s firing on all cylinders in a more compact time frame early in the season.
One approach is to use a color scheme that you like. If you lean toward warm colors, buy assorted red and orange tulips, golden daffodils, orange-red crown imperials, and deep purple alliums. If pastel is more to your liking, go with pink tulips, soft apricot daffodils, lavender alliums, and blue hyacinths and camassia.
This randomly planted bulb “meadow” includes varieties that bloom at different times for a succession of color.George Weigel
Another choice is whether you want all of the bulbs blooming around the same time or whether you’d prefer a succession of color. Buy all early, mid, or late bloomers for maximum color all at one time but pick a blend of early, mid, and late bloomers if you like the idea of one type handing off the starring role to another as spring progresses. Catalogs and bulb labels list approximate bloom times to help with this.
See George’s post on which bulbs bloom when
An added bonus of the bulb-meadow approach is that it’s a great way to take advantage of season-ending bargains. Stores often mark down bulb prices as much as 50 percent off by late fall, but by then, they may only have a few packs of this and a few of that. That’s no problem when you’re trying to be random.
Let your bulb-meadow foliage stand at least until it begins to turn yellow, a sign that the bulbs have done most of the solar recharging needed to fuel next year’s bloom.
The conundrum after that is what do you do with the bare space once the bulbs go into dormancy the rest of the year?
Replanting with annual flowers is one option, setting summer pots over the bare bed is another, and siting your bulb meadow behind another summer garden to hide it is a third option.
Not sure you’re going to like the idea? Carve out just a small bed, scatter a mix, and see how you like it in spring. If you like it, you can always expand the planting. If not, right after bloom is an ideal time to dig and rearrange bulbs.
Short, early-blooming bulbs can be planted directly into a lawn for early-season color.George WeigelOption 3
A “bulb lawn.” Also catching on lately, this approach solves the issue of what to do about bulb foliage once it dies back for the season. In this case, the bulbs remain hidden underneath the lawn in summer, fall, and winter, until they poke up and flower in early spring the next year.
Even many veteran gardeners don’t realize that many bulbs will grow well and return reliably when planted right into an existing lawn.
Bulb selection is important, though. It’s best to stick with short and small bulbs as well as ones that bloom very early so you don’t have to wait too long to being mowing the grass.
Some of best bets for bulb lawns are crocuses, dwarf daffodils, Siberian squill, snowdrops, winter aconite, and glory-of-the-snow.
I added a variety of those bulbs to my front lawn three years ago, and the planting has done well and is actually improving each year.
The main down side is that you really should wait until the bulb foliage at least begins to yellow before mowing it (to ensure solar recharging).
That usually means delaying the season’s first grass cut by a few weeks. However, I mow all around my bulb lawn in the meantime, which gives the look of a temporary natural area for about a month. Then the lawn looks normal the rest of the year.
Read George’s column on when and how to plant spring-flowering bulbs
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