Planting A Bulb Lawn (Part Two) With Daffodils In The Parkway - September 2026

Yesterday, I posted photos and details of how I'm starting a bulb lawn with (just) 95 crocus corms and mentioned that I also was expanding the bulb lawn by planting some bulbs in the parkway.

Like the Crocus varieties that I planted (Ruby Giant, King of the Striped and Romance), when I was looking at the Daffodils, I also wanted something a bit shorter in height.  I ended up buying (for now) just one package of 14 Tete a Tete Daffodil bulbs.  Here's how Longfield Gardens describes them:

A miniature daffodil with one to three perfect little blossoms per stem. Though Tete a Tete stands just 7" tall, the bright yellow flowers can be seen from a great distance.

Emphasis, mine.  

Miniature and bright yellow.  Sounds great.

These bulbs are a bit bigger than the Crocus bulbs:

I've long thought about how to transform the parkway into something more interesting than turf grass.  I don't have built-in irrigation and the parkway is pretty far from our hose bib, so watering things down there is a problem.  The grass just sort of *works*, so it has been low on my priority list of places to plant-up.  Also, the soil conditions down there aren't probably the best because when we built the house, they dug up service areas and installed the driveway.  Not to mention the large, mature Norway Maple tree in the center of the parkway that (based on my history) does a really good job of sucking all the moisture out of the ground underneath it's canopy.  

One of the ways that I could get started on planting up here is to bring in a load of organic material (municipal biosolids + composted manure) this Fall, to allow for aging over Winter.  But, that's for another day.

Today, I'm showing how I dug up four patches of turf and tucked in these daffodil bulbs into each of them.  These are in-between the Black Tupelo tree and the Norway Maple.  This photo below is from the sideway, facing the street.  You can see the curb at the top of the photo:

That's 95 crocus corms + 14 daffodil bulbs = 109 Fall Bulbs. 

But, it also is two other meaningful (to me, at least) things:

First...these are my *VERY FIRST* things planted in the hellstrip parkway.  As I begin to run out of room in the garden, the parkway is a place that I can add some drought-tolerant plants to expand the garden.

Second...it is a demonstration on how far I've come in my thinking around the lawn.  For a few seasons, I was a "domination line" guy.  Feeding it.  Cutting it long.  Applying iron.  Getting it perfect.  Now?  I'm planting bulbs in the middle of it.  

I'm guessing these bulbs are going to on sale soon, so maybe I'll grab a few more bags before the frost arrives.  And, drift even further away from being a 'lawn guy'.