Picking Spanish Bluebells

Spanish Bluebells (Hyacinthoides hispanica) has a bad reputation for multiplying too fast and becoming weedy, so J is not enamoured of them. (I don’t think they increase much here.) But they were perfect yesterday.

A sunny spring day brought a niece and her young twin boys and daughter.  After feeding my bantam hens with bread they collected 3 eggs each out of nest boxes. My favourite hen Freddie didn’t stay still long enough for patting but I think they enjoyed it.

And then I suggested picking bluebells `for Mum’. Only my sweet niece wanted to do this! And her mum was very clever, surmising that she would prefer the flowers in her own room.

Chasing her zombie brothers around led her and me to fall over in the mud, but such fun.

As they left my adorable niece was clutching her bunch of bluebells as if she’d been given its weight in lapis lazuli.

Weed or no, those bulbs are staying!

Jill Weatherhead is horticulturist, garden designer and principal at Jill Weatherhead Garden Design and garden writer who lives in  the Dandenong Ranges east of Melbourne, and works throughout Victoria (www.jillweatherheadgardendesign.com.au)