29/05/2026
Happy Friday!
🪻🙏Can you help us save our native bluebells please? Meet at the office at 10:00am, bring a garden fork, a piece and dress for a gardening session 🙂 We will provide teas/coffees and biscuits! (say YAY in a DM if interested in coming along!)🙏🪻
The native bluebell, Hyacinthoides non-scripta, a plant mainly of wooded areas but also found in coastal meadows! Unlike the non-native Spanish bluebell, that thrives in many of our gardens our native bluebell has a delicious, sweet aroma which is filling the air at the moment! The native bluebell have long been involved in folklore, especially relating to fairies, who are thought to live among the bluebell stems, giving them their other name of 'fairy flower'!
On the NNR we have a mixture of native, Spanish, and some hybrids too, just to confuse things! The Spanish was introduced to our gardens by the Victorians (eye roll!) but escaped into the wild.
We are starting the massive task to prevent the spread and cross-pollination of the non-native species to protect out bluebell meadows. We are doing this by gently digging up the bulbs of the non-native plants.
So, what’s the difference? I’ll concentrate on native vs Spanish as hybrids are harder as they can share the characteristics of both.
Look at the overall ‘jizz’ of the plant and you’ll get your eye in from afar! You don’t need to be stooped down sniffing for a scent (cockerspaniel wee or poodle?) or looking at the pollen colour necessarily! All photographed are native apart from one....can you tell which one? Pop out into your garden or park and have a look too!
Natives are smaller, really delicate plants, with violet blue, narrow tubular dainty flowers drooping to one side of the stem, with the tips of their ‘trumpets’ curling back! (ready for a fairy to wear ;)) They smell sweetly and have cream coloured pollen! Their leaves are less than 2cm wide.
Spanish are chunkier plants, taller with thicker stems, the pale blue flowers don ’t droop to one side of the stem and they lack that strong curl to the trumpet. They have no scent, the pollen is pale green or blue. The leaves are broad, around 3cm.
It’s common to get lots of different colours of Spanish, such as pinks and whites and whilst you get pink and white native bluebells in nature, it’s uncommon. If you are close to habitation/buildings the bluebells you are seeing are likely to be non-native.
See you on Monday? Have a great weekend everyone! Therese, John, Kate and Paula 🙂
**Native bluebells are protected under the wildlife and countryside act, 1981 and picking of any native flowers on the NNR is not permitted as the whole site is a site of special scientific interest.**
