I've been digging up an old flower bed in the middle of the lawn with a
view to grassing it over.
Although there are no flowers left, I find lots of white bulbs are
still in the soil. Does the fact that they are white mean that they
are still alive and active? It would be quite a lot of work picking
them all out and I would leave them where they are if I knew they're
were dead. If they'll still alive, how can I kill them?

wrote in message
ps.com...
I've been digging up an old flower bed in the middle of the lawn with a
view to grassing it over.
Although there are no flowers left, I find lots of white bulbs are
still in the soil. Does the fact that they are white mean that they
are still alive and active? It would be quite a lot of work picking
them all out and I would leave them where they are if I knew they're
were dead. If they'll still alive, how can I kill them?
~~~~~~~~~~~~
They are probably alive. However mowing will keep them under control and
soon kill them. I like to have bulbs growing through a lawn. These can be
cut six weeks after flowering with no harm to lawn or bulbs.
Best Wishes Brian.

On 16/7/06 21:00, in article
,
" wrote:

I've been digging up an old flower bed in the middle of the lawn with a
view to grassing it over.
Although there are no flowers left, I find lots of white bulbs are
still in the soil. Does the fact that they are white mean that they
are still alive and active? It would be quite a lot of work picking
them all out and I would leave them where they are if I knew they're
were dead. If they'll still alive, how can I kill them?

Could be bluebells which will look very pretty growing through grass. Why
don't you wait a year to see if you like it?
--
Sacha
www.hillhousenursery.co.uk
South Devon
(email address on website)

Sacha wrote:
On 16/7/06 21:00, in article
,
" wrote:

I've been digging up an old flower bed in the middle of the lawn with a
view to grassing it over.
Although there are no flowers left, I find lots of white bulbs are
still in the soil. Does the fact that they are white mean that they
are still alive and active? It would be quite a lot of work picking
them all out and I would leave them where they are if I knew they're
were dead. If they'll still alive, how can I kill them?

Could be bluebells which will look very pretty growing through grass. Why
don't you wait a year to see if you like it?

Spot on. All you have to do if you find you don't like them come
flowering time is keep up the regular mowing and they'll disappear as
if they'd never been there. A design consideration here is that you'll
be quite lucky if the area of the old bed is invisible for the first
few years, because the level will be difficult to get right at first,
and the grass mixture you sow will almost certainly be a slightly
different colour from the rest of the lawn -- not to mention that an
old flower bed may well have higher fertility than the old lawn, so the
grass may grow better. If there are some naturalised bulbs and wild
flowers in there, it'll look more as though you did it on purpose.

Just west of Carmarthen on the A40, there's a conspicuous example on a
slope facing the road: the previous owner had a big circular flower bed
in the middle, and it still shows years after being grassed down. It
puts one in mind of those archaeological air photographs!

--
Mike.