Here are some photos I just took in my yard of Spanish Bluebells and why I consider them aggressive weeds. Please note that I never planted them, they have spread by seeding and I've been digging them out twenty years....all these beds were lawn when we bought the house but there were some Spanish Bluebells in the neighbor's yard and on the side of the house by a big Hydrangea that seeded....Yes, I know I've got other weeds too ;) They grow up into the crowns of other plants and are very hard to dig out. They just finished blooming so they aren't as easy to see in the photos. They'll turn yellow in a couple of weeks and get very slimy and attract slugs like crazy too.

Even if the flowers and foliage wilt upon transplant - which is very likely - I would venture to say that, if the bulb sections are big enough, they will sprout again the following year. This is an extremely vigorous plant which will spread extensively once it gets started. I compost a goodly amount of it every spring just to keep it in check, yet I'm still inundated by it (in a good way ... sort of). If you wait too long in the spring to transplant, the above ground foliage will disappear and be difficult to find. I would wait until the flowers start to fade and do the transplant then. The foliage will probably wilt but the plants should grow and flower fine the next year. This is actually a very difficult plant to get rid of once you have it, lol.

Hi John! Thanks for the response. The VB were sown in plastic cell packs, kept in an unheated porch for the winter and put outside in March, as by the time I thought of it, it was too late to find the ground here in Western New York. After they died back I left them in the deep shade under big Arborviae trees (had several species there,including Dodecatheon meadia: Midland Shooting Star, growing pretty much the same as the VB except many more of them, and ungerminate woodland species I was planning to second cycle) and mist-hosed them on the rare dry spells, but being above ground they got pretty dry. In the fall I dug little holes and plopped the little plugs into the ground in the pine woods and covered them lightly with pine needle leaf mold. I wasnt going to order new VB seeds and wait to see how the ones I had made out, but now I really want to get some more and try again. But same problem - no ground here and minus 9 wind chill. I am thinking of ordering seeds and waiting to see if an opportunity arises to find the ground in January, or if there isnt I think what I would do differently is sow them all in one larger biodegradable container, in more nutrititious compound/soil, putting it right outside, and sinking it into the ground in the woods ASAP. Then not looking at it *grin*. Little bitty plants like that make me a nervous wreck. Does that sound like a good plan? Then I shouldnt worry if they only make a little leaf and dry up? PAX Laurette

Probably neither and definitely not Virginia bluebells. I would guess Hyacinthoides hispanica or a hybrid of that. English bluebells are rarely sold. I purchased what was labeled that a few years ago but when they flowered, they were not Hyacinthoides non-scripta. The bulb supplier agreed it was not as advertised and sent me some other types of bulbs for their error.