Not for the garden but for some new woodland we are establishing, with the help of a grant to buy the trees.
We planted baby trees last year and are now thinking about some wildflowers. The ground is mostly too wet at the moment, but there's a bank that will like some primroses, I am sure, and I am assuming that as the trees grow on, the ground will dry a little as the trees drink loads of water.
So far it seems I would want to buy wild primroses as plug plants, to plant out in September / October. Would I need to pot the plug plants on, and harden them off, before planting out, or can I just plant plugs directly into the bank?
Next, bluebells. Of course I can't buy wild bluebells, it's illegal to sell them. (As an aside, doesn't that just mean that people who want bluebells are forced to buy the Spanish type, which then escape and hybridise with our native ones?
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It's also illegal to remove bluebell bulbs from your own land.
Q1. Is it legal to lift a clump of bluebells growing on your own land, split them and plant one half back where you got it from and the other somewhere else on your own ground?
Q2. Does anyone have experience of growing bluebells from seed? I've tried collecting seed pods and establishing bluebells elsewhere in the past, and have never had any success - but maybe it just takes so many years and I've never been in one place long enough?