There's an interesting article about native and hybrid bluebells

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17597489

"Fuschia" wrote
There's an interesting article about native and hybrid bluebells

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17597489

It'd be a dreadful shame if our lovely native bluebells were ousted in
wild areas.

A well-meaning lady once gave me some Bluebell clumps 'in the green',
claiming they were the real deal because they'd been growing in her
orchard for the best part of a hundred years, so must be English ones.
But I've since been battling to get rid of the bulbs of these Spanish
imposters which apparently came over as long ago as Elizabethan times or
so I read somewhere. I realised the difference having seen the much more
graceful darker genuine English ones growing wild along the verges in
shady Cornish lanes. They looked wonderful interspersed with red
campion - if only lanes around here looked like that!

It's been a case of furious digging out of the Spaniards followed by
several years of mopping up any hangers-on before I dare plant any
proper English ones. Replacements will probably need a year of
quarantine in pots to prove their pedigree bloodline.

--
Sue