Now accepting new clients for the season. Request your consultation today.
Now accepting new clients for the season. Request your consultation today.
The tulips that light up a yard in April get planted the fall before — and MW Lawn & Landscape does it for you across Olathe, Overland Park, Lenexa, and Johnson County. We design and install mass displays of tulips, daffodils, crocus, and alliums at the right depth and the right time, in soil prepped for our heavy Kansas clay, so you get a knockout spring show without the digging. Family-owned for 25+ years.
Spring color is the one thing you can’t do at the last minute. The tulips and daffodils that make a yard glow in April have to go in the ground the previous fall, planted at the right depth and the right time so they root before winter and get the cold they need to bloom. Miss that fall window, and there’s no fixing it in spring. We handle the whole thing for you: we design a mass display tulips as the showstopper, with daffodils, crocus, and alliums to stretch the color and plant it properly so you wake up to a spring show instead of a to-do list you never got to
Doing it right in Johnson County takes a little local know-how. Our heavy clay soil holds water and rots bulbs if it’s not prepped, so we amend the beds for drainage before anything goes in. We plant in masses rather than thin rows, because that’s what creates real impact. And we’ll be honest about how tulips behave here: our summers warm up too fast for them to come back reliably year after year, so the best-looking approach is to treat them as annuals a perfect display each spring, then swapped out for summer color. That’s where our seasonal flower installation picks up, keeping your beds vivid right through the growing season.
Bulbs go in when the soil cools in fall the only time that produces a strong spring bloom. We handle the timing so you don’t miss it.
We plant in groups and drifts, not thin soldier rows, because a mass of color is what turns a bed into a showpiece.
Heavy clay rots bulbs. We amend the beds for drainage before planting, so your investment doesn’t sit in wet soil all winter.
When the tulips finish, we can swap them for summer annuals so your beds go from spring show to summer color without a gap.
Design, soil prep, and proper planting a spring display handled from bulb to bloom
We plan the color, layout, and mix tulips, daffodils, crocus, alliums to fit your beds and the look you want.
Quality, healthy bulbs sized for impact and varieties chosen to perform in our conditions and bloom when you want the color.
We loosen and amend the beds for drainage, because bulbs rot in the wet, heavy clay common across Johnson County.
Bulbs set at the right depth and spacing, in masses for display the details that decide whether they bloom strong or barely show.
Squirrels and voles love tulip bulbs. Where it’s a concern, we use deterrents and companion planting to protect your display.
After bloom, we can pull the spent tulips and install summer annuals keeping the bed in color all season.
The bulb-planting problems Johnson County homeowners run into and how we get it right.
25+ years planting Johnson County landscapes we know the timing, the clay, and what actually blooms.
Spring bulbs live or die by fall timing. We plant in the window that produces a strong bloom not too early, not too late.
Johnson County’s heavy soil rots unprepped bulbs. We amend for drainage so your display survives the winter and shows up in spring.
We plant in masses and thoughtful color combinations, so your beds read as a display not a scattering of flowers.
Spring bulbs, then summer annuals, then fall color one local company keeping your beds vivid the whole year.
Three steps to a yard full of color come April.
Fill out the form or call 9138294949 .Tell us your beds and the color you want, and we’ll design a display booking in fall.
We amend the beds for drainage and plant your bulbs at the right depth and spacing, in masses, in the fall window.
Your display blooms in spring and when it’s done, we can swap in summer annuals to keep the color going.
What homeowners in Olathe and Johnson County ask us about planting tulips and spring bulbs.
Still Have Questions? Call our team or submit a quote request we’re happy to answer anything before you book
In the fall, once the soil has cooled but before the ground freezes generally from late September into early December here in the Kansas City area. The technical trigger is soil temperature: you want it down to around 55 degrees at planting depth, which keeps the bulb dormant above ground while its roots grow below. The goal is to get the bulbs in with about six weeks of rooting time before a hard freeze. Plant too early in warm soil and they can sprout prematurely and get damaged; plant too late and they never root properly. Timing is the whole game, and it’s why people hire it out.
The rule of thumb is about three times the height of the bulb, which for standard tulips means roughly six to eight inches deep, spaced about four to six inches apart. Planting at the proper depth matters for more than tidiness: it insulates the bulb from the freeze-thaw cycles of a Kansas winter, gives the stem support against spring wind, and helps keep squirrels from digging them up. We also plant in masses rather than single-file rows, because a dense group of blooms is what creates that high-impact spring display.
Here in the Kansas City area, not reliably and it’s better to know that up front. Tulips need a long, cool spring to rebuild energy for the next year, and our summers tend to warm up too fast for them to do that well, so they usually come back thinner and weaker each season. That’s why commercial landscapers, and increasingly homeowners, treat tulips as annuals: plant a fresh, uniform display each fall for a perfect spring show, then pull them after bloom and replace with summer color. You get a flawless display every single year instead of a fading one, and the bed never sits empty.
Squirrels, voles, and chipmunks genuinely love tulip bulbs, and they’ll dig up a fresh planting fast if nothing deters them. A few things help: laying wire mesh or hardware cloth over the bed until the ground freezes, and interplanting with daffodils, which rodents avoid and which can screen the tulips. Planting at proper depth helps too. Interestingly, daffodils, alliums, and crocus are far less appealing to critters than tulips, which is one more reason a mixed display often holds up better than tulips alone. We factor rodent pressure into how and what we plant.
They can but only if the bed is prepped, and this is where a lot of DIY plantings fail. Bulbs need good drainage; they rot if they sit in cold, waterlogged soil all winter, and Johnson County’s heavy clay holds water exactly that way. The fix is to loosen the bed and work in compost or other organic matter to improve drainage before planting. We prep every bed for drainage as a standard part of the job, because in our soil it’s the difference between a strong spring bloom and a bed of rotted bulbs. One thing we skip, by the way, is the old bone-meal advice annual tulips already have all the energy they need inside the bulb.
Unfortunately, spring bulbs are a fall-only job there’s no way to plant tulips in spring and get blooms that same year, because they need the winter chill in the ground to trigger flowering. If you’ve got un-planted bulbs on hand very late in the season, it’s usually still worth getting them in the ground and taking your chances rather than storing them, since bulbs don’t keep like seeds. But for a planned display, the move is to get on the schedule for fall. If you want spring color and missed the window, we can talk about other options to brighten things up in the meantime.
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Spring bulbs are the opening act. Here’s how we keep your beds in color all year.
Summer and fall annuals that pick up where the spring bulbs leave off rotating color from the last tulip to the first frost. Learn More →
Fresh mulch that finishes the beds your color goes into clean, defined, and protecting the soil. Learn More →
Designing the beds and borders that showcase your seasonal color in the first place the whole picture, planned. Learn More →
The best spring displays are planted the fall before at the right time, the right depth, in beds prepped for our clay. Let MW Lawn & Landscape design and plant your bulb display, then keep the color going all season. Free quote, no pressure