Bluebell Seed and Delivery Anxiety

It has taken the best part of a week on and off to get the cleared section of woodland back to how I left it. Stumps have been taken down with the chainsaw, new green shoots rubbed off and discarded and glysophayte deployed to try and discourage re-growth with a bucket and paintbrush.

I thought it was time to try and "engineer" the landscape a little more so my first foray into proper conservation involved the purchase of 100 bluebell corms and a packet of 1,500 native bluebell seed.

I have read a lot about ensuring that your supplier is offering the right bulbs - not Spanish or hybrid. I thought I could trust Sarah Raven. I have no idea whether these bluebells are 1,2,3 or 4 years old or a variety of ages. Apparently from seed it will take 4 years for the plants to establish and flower. This is a long term project so I am going to have to develop some patience.

I don't think I can go too wrong if I just try different spots that I have cleared and just see what happens. I am not breaking the bank with £50 here or there on a few bulbs or seed. As long as what I am introducing is not alien the worst that can happen is that things do not germinate and I am prepared for that.

The bluebell corms are different sizes and look like a cross between a new potato and an onion set - which makes sense if you think about it ! The variation in sizes gives me hope that the larger ones might flower next year.

Scattering the bulbs on the floor of the wood should hopefully avoid a manmade look to anything that comes up. The instructions called for 6 inch holes and the only issue I found was breaking through in to the burrows of numerous small woodland creatures. At one point I thought I was just burying food for the moles, voles mice and rabbits,

It was a nice change of pace from all of the hacking and slashing of recent trips. I brought in the "gardener" from the main plot to oversee works. I used a dibber but Jane had a more professional looking tool that actually allows you dig a hole.

Turning to the seed I thought it best to just pick a small area and concentrate the sowing there so that I can be quite sure as to where it is. If it germinates it should have the appearance of very fine hair initially in the Spring.

I just raked over the soil into a tilth underneath an Ash tree and scattered the whole packet - 1500 seeds. We will just have to see what happens in the Spring ! The "bed" was marked out with some Laurel poles for good measure.

These are all new things for me. I am wallowing in the new. I am not really sure I have planted too many bulbs let alone native bluebells. I have certainly never set about restoring a bluebell carpet. I think next year might be a good time to think about lifting and dividing what I have in the "intact" part of the wood. I remain unsure whether I have native bluebells or whether they are Spanish or hybrids. Jane asked me the other day why I am so anxious about everything - I just am - worried that things are right. There is a balance and if you worry too much you end up doing nothing. I have tell myself I do not need permission to plant some bulbs here or there or just to get it spectacularly wrong. It isn't an 800 year old church that I am setting about with a can of paint - it is a nice small wood and it will be OK.

It is all a step in the right direction now that there is space to breathe in my wood. I have some Wood Anemones coming which is a plant I have seen naturalised in a nearby National Trust property. They look like beautiful white stars when mixed in with the smoky dusty blue of bluebells. Those have not turned up yet. I need to chase Ms Ravens online fulfillment department.

I am going back to Dubai for a couple of weeks but have a trip back for a work conference in Oxford in mid-September. Hopefully the Anemones will be here and I can plant those up nearby. I might even throw caution to the wind and chuck in a few hundred more bluebell corms and a half a kilo of seed ! To try and live a little free of the crippling anxiety of what the right thing to do next is. My OCD (I jest but it is there around the edges at times) kicked in when I found myself trying to decide what the right place was to start a pile of Laurel logs. I do laugh at myself. It is only a few weeks ago that the thought of owning and operating a chainsaw was daunting. Now it feels good to walk down the garden and to clear a small patch of wood. No doubt in a few years planting bluebell corms and scattering seed will be second nature. I will seek out some advice from the Wooland Trust soon for reassurance.

I can hear the scrunch of gravel on the drive as I tap this is bed. The mighty Ken has arrived to operate his JCB ! Now that really is a leap of faith and a subject for my next post. The garden works are now in full swing as his much bigger chainsaw is fired up at 8.15 am. Ken won't be worrying about what the right way is. He is Poldark to my Woody Allen.