On Wed, 7 May 2003 17:13:28 +0100, "Sue & Bob Hobden"
wrote:


Duncan wrote in message
.

Nor will removing a domestic quantity of bulbs. The law is an
extension of the enclosure acts and game laws, and has little to
do with conservation.

So with 60 odd million people and gawd knows how many houses, how many
Bluebells should we allow people to dig up, purely for domestic reasons.
Sorry, but the law was really introduced to prevent the comercial
explotation of wild resources, which was rife in the past. Whole areas of
woodland were dug up and every trace of the bulbs were removed, and thus
they never ever recovered.

Having walked in a few Surrey bluebell woods recently I can assure you there
are few places without the signs of hybridisation, indeed some stands seem
almost entirely hybrids.
So what's better, some "English" bluebells dug up for gardens, or imported
strains/species imported for gardens which then cross with ours and change
our Bluebell woods for ever.
(The hybrids seem lighter blue and are much more robust, standing up
straight as they do with flowers all around, our's hang their heads to one
side, the side with all the flowers.)

Bob, I suppose the only thing to do is for those who have nice
English bluebells like yours to set aside a patch and grow those so
well fed that they don't bother to produce flowers, only bulb offsets.
Do they respond like that?

Give them a pedigree or something. H. non-scripta vegetatively
reproduced from a pucker, botanist inspected plant.

Strangely I'm having an identity problem with another supplier who
delivered Akebia trifolia instead of the quinata I ordered, hoping,
what with the other one I already have, for the possibility of some
sausage shaped black fruits at the end of the season.

They were very helpful by email and gave me all the gen on the three
Akebias they stock and asked me to send a snip from my plant (which I
did yesterday along with a photograph.

Thing is, they seemed more concerned that I had the Akebia I thought
I had (packing shed mistake?), and having confirmed that, will send me
a quinata.

And another thing, I see from their web site (specialists in vines)
that they do a service identifying plants brought from overseas, and
if they were uncertain, knew the botanists who could give it "the
stamp".

Anyway what about all these bluebell preservation wallahs. They
should know. I see they are pollinated by flies and beetles. Safe
unattended distance from hybrids? 100 yards? I still have to chose an
allotment from those available up the road.

Hussein
(hunting for a pukka non-scripta) Now's the time while they are
flowering)
Grow a little garden

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