Blubells: what if you can't get at them to dig them out?

 Recently I wrote about how to get rid of Spanish bluebells: and this generated questions from a couple of people who would like to get rid of them, but can't dig the bulbs out.

In one case, they are in the middle of a heavily planted bed: in another, the owner has tried, but the bulbs are too deep to get out. In yet another, they are not easily accessible.

Fear not! Help is at hand!

I have two out of three of these issues in my own tiny back garden:

I have invading Spanish bluebells around the base of a tree, and round the back of my water butts, so I can't get round there with a fork, and even if I could, the tree roots would prevent me from digging them out.

Here they are - left- and as you can see, not very accessible. And yes, the fence needs repainting, but I'm waiting until the weather warms up a bit.

Partly because I don't like doing standing-still jobs when it's cold (when working, I get nice and warm, but not when more or less standing still), and partly because paint seems not to stick as well, when it is cold, or when the wood is not thoroughly dry.

So that job can wait for a while!

The bluebells, however, can't....

My other problem was an area where I'd planted Anemone blanda, the small wood anemone, to give a splash of colour at this time of year, at the end of my Sugar Cane hedge.

At this time of year, the perennial Sugar Cane (Miscanthus sacchariflorus) are cut down to nothing: the tulips are up, but not yet flowering, so the blue Anemone were nice, just there. 

I planted some tubers about 15 years ago, and have been nurturing them ever since: all went well until about six or seven years ago, when the Spanish bluebells started invading.

Obviously I can't dig them out, because it would disrupt my much-loved colony of Anemone.

So, how do we deal with Spanish bluebells in this sort of situation?

By just pulling off the leaves, as soon as they are long and thick, but before the flowers have formed.

Wear gloves, obviously (see previous post regarding issues with the sticky sap), and it really is that simple - just grasp each tuft of leaves, and rip them right out of the ground! The longer the piece you pull out, the better: but even if they rip off at ground level, you are preventing them from feeding the bulb, which means that next year, the bulb will be smaller, and will have less resources for growing.

If you are persistent, and do it every year, they will eventually die of exhaustion.

 

As you can see by this photo - right - I have succeeded: 

There are the Tulips to the left: there's some ivy and a few odd ephemerals which I haven't yet pulled out, but no Spanish bluebells.  

This shows that it is indeed possible to remove unwanted bluebells, even if you can't physically dig them out.

Now I have to go out there and pull out that one stray Muscari flower, before it sets seed!

 

 

 

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