The Bluebell Quandary

One of my favourite things about woodlands, after the snowdrops of course, is the wonderful rich carpet which appears when the bluebells are in full bloom. Over the years we have visited many areas of the country and marvelled at the sight of a blue/purple carpet of little delicate nodding flowers.

This is a picture from our local park where the bluebells are just emerging at the start of May, no doubt they will continue to blossom and spread for a few weeks yet. It has been my desire to emulate this within at least one section of our woods.

Last year we managed to spot these in our woods but sadly they were in fact the grand total of our bluebells. So in early Spring 2016 I bought some bluebells bulbs on line; after a little bit of research I ensured that they would be native English bluebells and not the Spanish variety.

I may have slightly underestimated the numbers of bulbs required to product a sea of blue but this is what appeared this year. Yes, although I planted them in groups of 3 or 5, I obviously planted the groups too far apart and should have clustered them in a smaller area. Still, in about 10 years time we may have loads!!

We were so excited to discover that we had loads of bluebells in the garden and I was amazed to see some white and pink ones too. Oh lovely we thought, what pretty little flowers. However, after another stint on the computer I found that these are either Spanish bluebells or hybrids of the native bluebells. This is bad news indeed, apparently they are extremely invasive and will hybridise with the native bluebell, all but wiping out their distinctive traits. Unfortunately we had also transplanted some bulbs from the garden into a different area of the woods so we may inadvertently introduced the aggressive variety there.

So the quandary is: what to do? Do I lift all the bulbs we have put in? Leave them to naturalise? Mmm, decisions, decisions. Well, to be honest I'm not sure. Part of me wants to rid the garden and woods of the non-native species and purely plant English bluebells but the impatient side of me says oh look at the pretty colours. I think my sensible side is winning as it's probably a good time to lift the bulbs before they get settled in and I could get some (lots) more English bluebells in the autumn to plant everywhere.

Well, after much deliberation, the war on the non-native bluebell has begun. I have been around the woods, often on my hands and knees, getting stung by nettles while examining and sniffing bluebells. Anything non-native has been removed and bagged for disposal. All the offending bluebells in the garden have likewise been dug up and bagged. Undoubtedly this will be an ongoing task until they are all eradicated but it's a start. I can still dream of eventually having something resembling a bluebell meadow (above), in the meantime I'll start to shift my focus to the cut flower bed and hope that it is more successful.