Saturday, February 9, 2008

Hellebores


Hellebores are one of the mainstays of my shade garden; in addition to being extremely easy to grow and tolerant of neglect, they bloom in January and February when not much else is going on in the garden. The white hellebores are usually the first to open in January...




Followed closely by the rose-pink varieties.







The purple ones open in early February












And I'm still waiting for the "almost-black" hellebore, which always seems to be the last to bloom.

9 comments:

Mary said...

Very nice! I have one bloom in my gardens - one single camelia japonica. Hot pink.

Joel Gillespie said...

beautiful! Hey, do you know much about no till gardening. I can't figure out how to contact Laurie who I know is into that. I am thinking about it. jsgillespie@mindspring.com

Annie in Austin said...

Oh these are nice, David - and it's the almost-black one that has my plant envy in full gear of course!

Annie at the Transplantable Rose

kate said...

These are such gorgeous flowers. I have one that I baby each year, but it barely survives.

The dark Hellebores are so striking - you are lucky to have them. I hope you post some pictures of the near black Hellebores.

Lisa at Greenbow said...

A nice collection of hellebores David. I need to investigate whether that purple one will survive here. I just love the color. My hellebores aren't blooming yet. It won't be long.

Mr. McGregor's Daughter said...

Are all those Helleborus orientalis hybrids? How interesting that your colors bloom at different times. Mine all seem to bloom at the same time.

Mary said...

Hi David,

There's a little "thank you" on my blog tonight. Check it out.

Mary

Gloria said...

How pretty! Snow and blooms does not seem fair...
So many gardeners with blooms in February.Only one time did the hellebore bloom in February here in our Chicago garden and that was on the very last day of the month when a single flower opened after a very unusually warm month. Mostly they bloom pretty close to one another here because there are so few sunny and warm days until March.Tom Skilling(weather person on nightly news)had said that the first five days of February saw only 11 minutes of sun.And not much more since.
This year the hellebore have been covered in snow then thawed, over and over. So who knows what will occur.

Thanks for showing us that spring is on the way,albeit slowly.

David said...

Camellias are beautiful, Mary. I've got one that's supposed to bloom in Dec, but the cold always kills the buds.

Hi Joel, Well, I don't own a tiller, so all my loosening of the soil is done by hand and mattock.

That almost-black one is my favorite too, Annie. Very unusual.

I will definitely post a photo, Kate.

It should survive in Indiana, Lisa--they are native to Central Europe, and it gets REALLY cold there.

Mr M's daughter--yes, they are all orientalis hybrids. They open at different times but bloom so long that they are usually all in bloom at the same time.

Thanks, Mary!

11 MINUTES, Gloria? I would just die!