I’ve noticed recently that the area I live in seems to be awash with bluebells, they’re growing everywhere. My own front and back garden seem to be stuffed with them. I always thought bluebells were a rare flower, but we’ve got an epidemic on our hands!
Being the bleeding-heart liberal hippy that I seem to have grown into these days, I don’t tend to look upon them as a weed that needs to be got rid of, rather a welcome splash of colour in this urban sprawl that I call home. I’m kind of the same about urban foxes to be honest…yes, they rip our bin bags open, but I bet they lived on this land long before we built houses on it.
As it turns out, bluebells are protected by UK law, and I found this snippet of info really interesting:
H. non-scripta is a protected species under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981. Landowners are prohibited from removing common bluebells on their land for sale and it is a criminal offence to remove the bulbs of wild common bluebells. This legislation was strengthened in 1998 under Schedule 8 of the Act making any trade in wild common bluebell bulbs or seeds an offence.
As you may have noticed, I’ve gone a bit collage mad recently (probably after hours of me and Husband trying to get a bad install of Picasa to work on my crappy netbook, I’m getting the most out of it after our effort!) and I made this one of all of the pictures I took of the bluebells along the way when Sausage and I walked to the shops today. I love the way the flowers look alongside concrete, ceramic tiles and bricks, such a juxtaposition of nature and man-made products.
They were only taken with my iPhone 4S, but if you click onto the collage you can zoom in on individual pictures to see them a bit better. Anyway, here it is.
As a side note, Urban Bluebells is the best name for something, if I ever start my own kids clothing label, that’s what I’ll call it!
I think those are spanish bluebells (Hyacinthoides hispanica) Jayne, you would need to check further, if they are not highly scented they probably are. They are very invasive and not protected under British law xx
Oh really? Either way, they’re really pretty and I think they brighten the place up! My garden is a mess at the moment and they’re the only bit worth looking at.
Bluebells were my grandads favourite flower and always make me smile. I’d love some in the garden – dont see many around here. xx
We had a few last year, but they just seem to have sprung up madly this year. I love them too, they remind me when I was a kid and my parents would take me for walks in the woods on a Sunday afternoon – happening upon a patch of bluebells was always a little thrill, like we’d found a secret garden that only the trees knew about.