Picking daffodils ìn public places

I thought it was illegal, as am sure I once read of a man being fined for doing this.

l visited a famous garden that is very rarely open to the public. As l was leaving there were two girls, around five years old, carrying massives of freshly picked wild flowers. People were saying how cute but l was aghast, l couldn't believe they had been allowed/encouraged to pick them. I mentioned it to a steward and she just shrugged and said they had put signs up but couldn't stop it. It's so selfish.

Difficult isn't it. We want to encourage a love of nature in children. Regarding daffodils, although I wouldn't pick any outside of my own garden, very few are native so it doesn't matter too much as long as not everyone does it.

I think they should be left in public places for everyone to enjoy.

sodapop

I think they should be left in public places for everyone to enjoy.

Yes, I do too. There's a grass verge near us which is a complete carpet of daffodils every spring, and every year without fail, you see bits where people have picked them - or even worse, just pulled them out and left them to rot.

Hear, hear.

I was aghast to witness it.

I also thought it was illegal!

I think it’s not on either, especially when it’s adults doing the ‘vandalism’. I can see maybe just one or two picked by a small child to take home to a Mum or Grandma, not that I ever did or allowed that, I hasten to add. However, where I take DD2’s Little Dog for a walk, (around the long closed and semi derelict DLI museum) there are thousands of daffodils now after thousands of snowdrops and I hardly ever see another living soul when I’m there - it’s as if they are all for me.

It is illegal, but worse imo is picking flowers which multiply by seeding, such as cowslips.

Germanshepherdsmum

It is illegal, but worse imo is picking flowers which multiply by seeding, such as cowslips.

Absolutely. I know someone who was walking in woods near us which are carpeted with snowdrops every year - he saw several large bags which had been filled with then and then a man digging them up. He asked what he was doing and the man told him he sold them! I was quite shocked.

Skydancer

Difficult isn't it. We want to encourage a love of nature in children. Regarding daffodils, although I wouldn't pick any outside of my own garden, very few are native so it doesn't matter too much as long as not everyone does it.

The bulbs were paid for and planted whether they're native or not. Nobody should be stealing the blooms which are for everybody to enjoy. If you accept 'some' picking them why not everyone, and who decides who the special 'some' are?

Not only illegal but selfish to deprive others of enjoying them.

Makes me so cross. A colleague once took her class around the school grounds so they could all pick some daffs for Mothers Day - a sweet thought I suppose, but no flowers left in the grounds at all. She only did it once!

This reassures me. I was horrified to see small children encouraged to pick daffodils earlier today. We have lovely reservoir walk, the pathways full of daffodils currently. I’ve never seen daffy being picked here before - outrage

There are loads of threads on our local Facebook about this. As I’ve witnessed it myself I can only think the people doing it and having photos taken with them don’t realise it isn’t ‘normal’ to pick them!

I’m trying and failing not to get cross. I did this walk today as I have for fifty years, with my various dogs. Today my little well behaved uncomplicated spaniel. As well as the flower pickers, their parents had disposable coffe cups which they abandoned rather than take home or even use the bins provided. They throw bread to the swans and ducks despite sign asking them not to - Many badly behaved yappy dogs. Right I’m off to breathe and calm 🙏🏿

I think the Countryside and Wildlife Act is a bit nuanced regarding flowers grown and managed by ‘a body’, a council for example, versus truly wild flowers. Similarly picking the flowers rather than digging them out by the roots.
Very soon it will be people picking wild garlic.

I did once stop the car on my road and told the young children and their carers that the daffodils were there for everyone to enjoy and not for picking. They haven’t done it again.

They're only a £1 a bunch in most supermarkets, it's not nice to pick them in public places where they're there for everyone to enjoy.

There’s a grass bank outside my house absolutely covered in daffodils. Every few years I plant more bulbs out there. Last Spring I was staggered to see a very well dressed woman with a small child picking them. They had picked a large bunch. I went out and told her they were there for everybody to enjoy and she threw them on the ground and flounced off!

Planting bulbs in the countryside, nature ?

There are wild daffodils in the woods. I used to know the difference - are they smaller?
I understand how daffs multiply, but there are single daffodils on the side of the road, how do they get there?

Wild daffodils are smaller

From seed? It takes about five or six years for a daffodil grown from seed to bloom.

I ticked off ( nicely) a, child recently, for picking daffodils in a park.

I was a lot madder some time ago, to see a small child in Kew Gardens, deliberately trampling over a gorgeous mass of scillas. The parents said and did nothing, and I still regret keeping my mouth shut.