When I was on my hands and knees weeding yesterday I was pleased to find a plant I took to be a hellebore in leaf but not in flower with a little rash of seedlings under it. I made a mental note to check it later on in the spring and promptly forgot all about it.
buds rising from the ground like Venus from the waves, and almost as quickly. Helleborus hybrids.
Imagine my surprise today when I walked past the crab apple tree and noticed the tatter of dark green leaves beneath it had thrown up flower buds of dark purple, boldly announcing themselves as Hellebore x orientalis hybrids. And there are 3 other plants doing the same thing,except some of them are white or pale pink. I swear there were no flower buds yesterday. I am so looking forward to seeing them open.
Magnifiicent! They never volunteer in my climate and I can’t count on seeing blooms till March or so…yours look like the blooms will pop open any day now..
Hi Jeanette. We are having a very mild start to January and it has flushed many plants into early growth. Cold is forecast again so I am half expecting these buds to just hold on like this until the end of the month. It is a new garden for us and we need to learn its warm and pol spots.
when so many people’s gardens are covered in snow we’re so fortunate to watch our gardens growing .. the hellebores in my garden are just showing their buds coming up out of the earth .. such lovely beings ..
They are lovely Jane. Sorry you had trouble commenting but all seems well now. Sometimes it is difficult to comment on WordPress and I find using a PC is easier than my Ipad to post here. There doesn’t always seem to be an obvious reason to a non-techy like me.
Wonderful, I do love the way hellebore flower stems just erupt out of the earth at such an otherwise barren time of year.
Although its summer here in NZ, it is lovely to look at winter hellebores just popping their heads out ready for their display. Beautiful pics.
Thank you Tinks. I am hoping to be photographing the wild flowers in your part of the world next October. Really looking forward to it.