In article 82h7c.53549$_w.851264@attbi_s53, "Shelley"
wrote:

Hi there. While out walking yesterday my husband and I passed by a lawn
that was full of crocus flowers and we just loved it. I was just wondering.
Are there any downfalls to planting these little bulbs in your lawn?

The drawback is they're not going to be showy if you actually walk on your
grass. You can't walk on flowering crocuses & expect them to look like
much a second later. If there are places around the lawn you never walk on
or sit on or roll around on with the dog, then that is no drawback in that
spot.

The second drawback is if you want the crocuses to naturalize & do very
well, you may be unable to mow your lawn in spring until it is a full foot
tall. The first mowing of the season cannot be so early that it cuts the
post-bloom crocus grass, which is invisible because it looks just like the
grass, but during the post-bloom that crocus-grass puts on a new burst of
growth to eight or ten inches height & recharges the bulb for the next
year. If it gets mowed too soon, the bulbs decline instead of increasing
in vigor & producing offsets. In colder areas where the crocuses bloom as
late as April & the grass is recharging the bulb in May, this could mean
not being able to mow the lawn until almost June! Where crocuses bloom
late February & March it's not so much a problem as the lawn's turf won't
start growing until late in March anyway, & letting it grow a little long
through much of April is no big deal unless one is a lawn fanatic who
needs it constantly short-short.

Do
they spread like the dickens and we'd eventually have only crocuses?

Most crocus cultivars won't spread as much as one would like really, but
they do spread. They never really out-compete sod but merely manage to
hold their own, so very compatible with grass, though grass has the
greater competitive value & occasionally crocuses can't quite fully
naturalize. Some crocuses are either too small to show themselves well in
turf, or a bit delicate if competing with grass for nutrients. One that
spreads well in grass is Crocus tommasianna "Ruby Giant." It's a bit small
(despite the name "giant") but not as small as other tommies. You have to
make sure the grass was well-mowed by the time it stops growing in
autumn/winter so that by the time the tommies erupt in late winter,
they're not lost in grass that was never mowed. They self-seed better than
most crocuses so eventually their numbers will be great enough to be showy
despite their size.

Exactly when they bloom varies from season to season; in our zone tommies
bloom February & early March. But the grass can't be mowed until April's
end if the tommies are to fully perennialize, though if you can get "wild"
tommies (they're smaller & have no cultivar name) their crocus-glass lies
flat almost like it knows a lawnmower could be coming by.

A crocus that is immediately showier in grass is the blue & yellow C.
sieberi "Firefly." It's maybe twice the size of the tommy, & blooms a few
weeks earlier, meaning you'll be able to finally mow the lawn a bit
earlier too, but the rule of thumb is you can't mow until the crocuses
have stopped blooming for at least a month.

It
just looked so nice and so colorful for the brown-lawn time of year so I had
to ask. Also, if we decide to plant these little bulbs next fall so that we
can have a lawn like this, how deep do you plant them?

Not all crocuses are planted exactly the same depth. The usual instruction
is three to four inches deep. When in grass they should go the deepest
recommended so they're not exclusively in lawn roots. If you have mice or
squirrels who're prone to searching in lawns for bulbs, then make them
closer to 5" deep & after you've put the corm in the dibbled hole, put a
little topsoil mixed with bloodmeal over the top of the crocus. The
bloodmeal will fertilize the bulb but the real purpose is to make it not
smell like something edible to squirrels & mice. The bulbs are most apt to
be dug up & eaten when first planted because that's when the soil is
loosest over the bulb; the following year when the ground is not already
softened for mousey fingers, they're not as apt to be dug up, but mice may
still get the tiniest bulblets that would otherwise be developing from
self-seeding. The people who complain their tommy crocuses don't spread
are almost certainly unknowingly being visited by mice, or the tommies
certainly would spread.

I visited a number
of websites but nobody said how deep to put the bulbs. Thanks for your
help!

Shelley

I prefer crocuses in the garden rather than in the grass, but I like to
place tommies where they seed naturally into lawn so the garden & lawn
blend together. On the other hand, some crocuses are so awfully floppy
when in flower that growing them in the lawn keeps them propped up. Select
the tallest-flowering varieties with the most-open cups, some C.
chrystanthus varieties are very short & have small round flowers ("Prinz
Claus" and "Cream Beauty" for example) & so do not show as well in grass,
but some other C. chrystanthus cultivars stand up tall & fully open. Some
C. vernus cultivars are biggest by far but also bloom last. But really I'd
go for tommies because they self-seed the best, or "Firefly" because it's
earliest.

Squills & Glory of the Snow also compelte nicely with turf. Glory of the
Snows have floppy untidy homely leaves & stems when planted in a garden, &
the flowers often flop face-down because the stems are inadequate to hold
them up, but pllanted in turf, the leaves practically vanish within the
lawn's grass, & the flowers stay face up. They are apt to bloom mid & late
March. English Squill however may wait until April to bloom & for many
that might mean having to wait way too long for the first mowing that'd
have to wait for late May.

-paghat the ratgirl

--
"Of what are you afraid, my child?" inquired the kindly teacher.
"Oh, sir! The flowers, they are wild," replied the timid creature.
-from Peter Newell's "Wild Flowers"
See the Garden of Paghat the Ratgirl: http://www.paghat.com/