Are you talking about naturalizing? If you plan on cutting the grass, then the bulbs may not have time to build up reserves for next year's flowers. If you have clumps of bulbs here and there in your lawn, I think that might look a bit strange, and how are you going to cut around the grass?

I have chionodoxas all over my lawn. They do ok even with mowing. I have areas with bluets (wildflowers) that I don't mow till they've seeded. Depends on your landscape, how it looks with unmowed areas.

You can plant small, early bulbs in lawn. Crocus bulbs work great because they are usually done by the time the lawn needs mowing. They look great actually. You probably won't be happy with daffs since you need to leave the leaves until they turn brown and they really don't look too wonderful as they are dying back.

I think it depends on your style of gardening. Over here bulbs are frequently planted in grass in informal patches and we are used to leaving a patch of longer grass in lawns until the foliage is done. The grass verges of roads leading into many towns and villages are planted with bulbs. It doesn't work for tulips except some of the species. Aconites, snowdrops, crocus, narcissus (especially the smaller ones and species, snakes head fritillary, camassia all work well in grass. BTW experiments have shown that 6 weeks is sufficient for daffodil foliage even if it is not completely dead.

My parents have a lake at their house. Along the bank they plant daffodils in the grass- not in a bed of any kind. They plant the daffs fairly thick so that they don't have to mow between. They just let the grass grow there.

I wasn't sure if other bulbs would push through the grass or not. I really only see people with daffodils this way. Perhaps because they are so early that the grass hasn't reached high heights by the time the daffs are done blooming?

We have a large field along the road (1/2 acre in a rectangle shape). At the back of the field is a row of pines of all types. They are about 25 feet high. Essentially they are there for privacy and noise dampening (although we are so country that the noise is essentially nonexistent). We struggle with what to do with that area. It's too big to do much with and it's so far from the house that gardening is a bit inconvenient. I thought maybe we'd spruce things up a bit by putting some bulbs in this fall.

I was thinking of randomly interspersing clumps of assorted early bulbs: hyacinth, daffodils, tulips, etc.

How do you think they'll do essentially unattended?

See this link for BHG's opinion on this. Apparently it even has a name! "Naturalizing"

http://www.bhg.com/gardening/flowers/bulbs/planting-tips/#page=14

I have naturalized daffodils and have found that they will be fine (though with my poor soil they don't multiply as fast as in garden soil) as long as they have good sun. So how they will do depends on their light exposure and whether the pines will provide too much shade during their active growth period.

Didn't even think about the soil quality in the unaltered area. Such a good point, Babs.

The pines are on the west end of the field, so they won't throw any shade on the bulbs (to the east) until really late afternoon. Hopefully that won't be an issue.

Still thinking about it all. Will report back. Thanks, as always!

The previous owner of this house apparently loved the idea of naturalizing bulbs in the grass. All kinds of bulbs from crocus, muscari, and daffodils, to chionodoxa and anemone.

For the most part, I do not like bulbs in the grass. I think it looks messy, and so I've dug countless bulbs out, but they keep on popping up every Spring. On top of that about 1/2 my grass is northern turf grass, and 1/2 is Zoysia grass, which is a southern turf grass. The Zoysia does not green up until late spring, after the bulbs have gone by. Bulbs blooming in the midst of straw-yellow grass doesn't look so attractive.

I like lotsa bulbs in the garden beds. They put on a nice Spring show, and then when the bulb foliage is dying back, the perennials, grasses, and shrubs are filling in. YMMV.

Another good point Terrene. I think I would only like early bulbs for that reason. Our grass typically stays quite green until July.

In the UK the grass will be green all year round so the bulbs will always have a green foil. They might not look so good where the grass is brown either before they grow or as they die back.