paghat wrote:


I'd put down about eight inches of loose fallen leaves over the surface.
It'll smother the grass but become leafmold before the bulbs are ready to
sprout. If can't get quite so many leaves, about six inches of straw will
smother the grass and protect the bulbs, but will likely have to be raked
off & composted when its time for the bulbs to sprout, as straw doesn't
break down on the surface as nicely as do leaves. The one problem with
this might be that the more common muscaris will be sprouting NOW instead
of the spring, so any grass-smothering will have to be done after spring
bulbs are dying back.

The suggestion that glyphosate is a good option "while bulbs are dormant"
is pretty lousy advice even if you're not properly organic about stuff.
Glyphosate needs to be applied in rather warm weather to work at all, & is
not very good at killing sod even when the temperature is warm.

Thanks for the heads up on the glyphosate. And the leaves. Do I have
leaves? Tons of them. We are going to try to mulch what's left of mine
with the mower, weather permitting, (whole back yard and terrace
covered) but I'm eyeing my neighbor's oak leaves to make leaf mold
because that is supposed to be better than my mostly maple leaves with
crab and apricot (the birch always mostly blow away in front). So that
is a good idea, but they will blow away so I would have to use more
chicken wire, no biggie, have a big roll of the 24".

The wind piles them up in some places, so those are the ones I raked and
threw in the cages, too thick for the mower to go through. A lot of the
neighbors' blow onto my side sidewalk for some reason as if I don't have
enough of my own.

The only thing is when I planted the muscari not too long ago, a couple
bulbs had already sprouted in the package, hope that doesn't ruin them,
never tried them before.

I'll have to think about it. Maybe I'd better wait until they die back
in the spring. I have two huge cages to collect leaves in to scatter
around in the spring. But they will be pretty broken down by spring.

It is snowing, but it will melt off I think.


-paggers