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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

AIBU--bluebell picking

91 replies

Abra1d · 04/05/2012 18:01

OK, I know it's not actually illegal to pick bluebells in England, but AIBU to think that if you are at a National Trust beauty spot and you allow your children to pick large bunches of bluebells (four or five children picking) you are not really being very considerate? I'm not talking about a couple of flowers for a jam jar. The mothers were taking photos of the children with the bunches, so they knew what was going on.

When we went to the car park the children had dropped some of the bluebells on the ground and they had been trampled on. I felt so sad. These are beautiful flowers, and quite rare now as they are 'proper' English bluebells, not the Spanish hybrids.

Perhaps I am being grumpy, but it just seemed a bit selfish. What do others think?

OP posts:
jandymaccomesback · 04/05/2012 21:16

YANBU
I saw a family once picking large bunches of dafodils from the Marie Curie display in our local park. Some people just don't think.

Booette · 04/05/2012 21:21

YANBU. I hate seeing people pick flowers, there was a family out picking loads of the daffodils last year.

My kids know they can only pick dandelions and daisies, anything else is a no no. I tell them they look much better where they are than dying in a pot of water.

usualsuspect · 04/05/2012 21:22

Bluebells spread like mad though , they sprout up all over the place.

I don't think I would get upset about kids picking some bluebells tbh

NonAstemia · 04/05/2012 21:23

YANBU at all.

Angry Angry

UnChartered · 04/05/2012 21:25

picking from a 'specially planted display is very different from picking from the wild

i think it's mainly people who live in towns who get upset by wildflower-picking

honest, we've got them like weeds - they birds drop seeds all over the place and they're in gardens and grass verges round here

NicNocJnr · 04/05/2012 21:31

YANBU - regardless of the fact they were bluebells it was selfish.

I've seen it in gardens we've been to visit and I can't get over it - you came to see the pretty flowers so how would you feel if some eejit had left large patches of empty flower bed for your enjoyment?

Not to mention if it's not your property you have no right to be picking anything anyway. Angry [huff]

Some people don't think what affects other about their actions. We used to have a field that opened onto a country road at one end - it was private property and not in the way of the public footpath (that we made sure was maintained as we used it). I came down from the feed shed one day to find a twat of a man had uprooted one of the posts for the electric fence because 'well, you had locked the gate and I couldn't get the buggy through it' - several sheep had gotten out but luckily the horses hadn't ventured out - they could have been killed but, even worse they could have caused a fatal car accident. His justification for being in there 'I wanted to walk this way and if you don't want people in here then you shouldn't be on a public footpath'. Shock Angry he got schooled in manners that day. We actually never minded if people wanted to go in and wander through and always made sure only friendly beasts were in there but fgs. I couldn't work out why a massive electric shock hadn't made him think twice.

Original poster
Abra1d · 04/05/2012 21:33

Well, we are country bods. :) uncharterd. Yours are probably Spanish hybrid bluebells, not English ones, which are becoming pretty rare.

ChippingInLovesEasterEggs - We were on the Oxfordshire/ Glos. borders. The bluebells are not as good as in previous years. Too little rain early on?

OP posts:
UnChartered · 04/05/2012 21:35

arf at diagnosing spanish hybrid bluebells over the net Grin

fussbucket · 04/05/2012 21:42

Thanks everyone about the special narcissus being picked. I was surprised because it was very deep into the woods, a very special place to my brother, we'd played there as kids, and nowhere near any footpaths. At first I'd thought they'd come up 'blind' as daffodils sometimes do, but on inspection I saw the flower stems had been broken off.

The English bluebells are under heavy threat from the Spanish ones, which are more robust than our native ones. I walked through West Woods near Marlborough, Wilts, earlier this week, and the scent was noticeably less heavy than in previous years - when I looked closely at the flowers I realised that a lot of them were lighter blue and sticking upright a bit like a scrawny Hyacinth.

Original poster
Abra1d · 04/05/2012 21:45

Well, we are country bods. :) uncharterd. Yours are probably Spanish hybrid bluebells, not English ones, which are becoming pretty rare.

ChippingInLovesEasterEggs - We were on the Oxfordshire/ Glos. borders. The bluebells are not as good as in previous years. Too little rain early on?

OP posts:
Original poster
Abra1d · 04/05/2012 21:46

Sorry, posted twice.

OP posts:
Original poster
Abra1d · 04/05/2012 21:48

'I wanted to walk this way and if you don't want people in here then you shouldn't be on a public footpath'

Oh. My.

OP posts:
squeakytoy · 04/05/2012 21:50

My MILs front garden is like a sea of bluebells at the moment, so pretty.

UnChartered · 04/05/2012 21:51

they're only any good if they are indigenous though squeaky Grin

NarkedPuffin · 04/05/2012 21:53

YANBU. Only selfish idiots allow their DCs to do this.

BrianButterfield · 04/05/2012 21:57

Take only photographs, leave only footprints. A good motto to follow if in doubt.

PrisonerOfWaugh · 04/05/2012 22:03

YANBU, but I do laugh at all the bluebells as a rare species thing a bit, because we are having to wade through carpets of them at the moment (and yes they are the real deal as I have gone to some trouble to establish). I have to say May is my favourite month, due in no small part to the bluebells Smile

bronze · 04/05/2012 22:05

Wouldn't surprise me if bluebells get another amendment to the1981 act

NicNocJnr · 05/05/2012 00:04

Fussbucket - I missed your first post but my condolences.
I haven't been able to scatter my brothers ashes, he had no specific wishes and I just haven't been able to let them go Sad so I can't imagine what you would have felt like finding that.

I don't like flowers in vases anyway but just think there's so many reasons to leave wildflowers be. I don't see why a handful of limp dying flowers that will do nothing but wilt away when you get home is worth it tbh. If you must then at least choose some varieties that grow like weeds.

TheHouseOnTheCorner · 05/05/2012 00:28

Has anyone said that if you pck them they don't come back in the same spot again...ever? Is that true or just something my Mum used to tell me when I was a kid and wanted to pick them...

ravenAK · 05/05/2012 00:52

It's to be hoped that they'll get them home, put in water, watch them die in hours & learn from it that bluebells aren't to be picked.

TheUnMember · 05/05/2012 08:02

I thought it was illegal if they were cultivated, the digging up bulbs bit only applied to wild flowers. I would have thought NT counts as cultivated.

Depends on whether the NT planted them or whether they are growing wild on NT land.

WeetabixIsNotAPlural · 05/05/2012 08:08

Find something more important to care about?

Sparklingbrook · 05/05/2012 08:29

People are so selfish. Weetabix my children would not do it, they know it is is wrong. I care about right and wrong.

BeingFluffy · 05/05/2012 09:15

YANBU. Last year I was on a train that stopped at Wandsworth station in south London. The station is next to a common. I saw a fucking selfish bitch with her arms through the station railings, picking the bluebells that were growing at the edge of the platform where there is a small grassy area.

I think what annoyed me most is that it is quite an affluent area and I could see a posh buggy obviously belonging to her nearby. She evidently thought she could just take whatever she wanted for her own purposes. Never mind the people who use the station each day and might enjoy looking at them. My train had stopped on the opposite platform, but if it hadn't I would have got off and given her a piece of my mind.