Hellebores - The Lenten Rose

One of my constant goals is to give the botanical name along with a nickname in parenthesis. While the nickname of this plant is Lenten Rose, I do believe that many gardeners also know the botanical name of Hellebore.

Lenten Rose though is a pretty apt description for this wonderful perennial as it most certainly does begin blooming during Lent (that is, it does so here on Long Island in my zone 6b garden).

Hellebores can be quite expensive so one has to have either much money or much patience before amassing a large collection of them. In my case, it's patience, I've added one or two a year for about 8 years now.

Gardening books will tell you that Hellebores are shade lovers and will grow in lean soil. While that may be true, I've found that they reward me well for giving them a half a day of sun (morning is best) and lots and lots of compost.

Most often, Hellebores don't have single cultivar names but are sold as seedling lots. This white double is one of my favorites. If you leave the seed heads on your Hellebores they will reward you with seedlings near-by. I keep checking the ground near this beauty, no babies yet but I always have hope.


One of the reasons I heard for the down-turned blooms on Hellebores is to protect the pollen and reproduction organs from severe late winter temperatures. It certainly sounds like a good reason to me so I'll stick with that thought.

Every now and then you do find an upturned bloom. Hellebore hybridizers are working hard to get more and more varieties that do turn their faces upright. I love the freckles on this lovely seedling.

This last shot is the least artistic but the most exciting one for me. Last September I posted about dividing a large Hellebore in my garden. This is one of the divisions I planted out, each and every one of them is just chock full of blooms and buds! So much for thinking that they might sulk after division.

If you want to read the post about dividing your hellebores you need to visit my other blog, Old Country Gardens. Once there, you can type in the word "Hellebore" in the search field at the top of the blog and it will bring you to the post.

I've also added a search field to this blog and a list of post labels down the side.

Happy Spring!
Melanie

Meltdown

With February almost at an end, and March just around the corner, we are experiencing the big "meltdown". Ok, maybe it's not so big, that is, it's not like temperatures are a balmy 50 degrees.

Still, with days 6-8 degrees above freezing and now lots of rain, we are finally getting some snow melt.

These photos were taken just over a week ago when we experienced our second blizzard of the season. While I can honestly say I'm tired of shoveling the walk, driveway and a path to the mailbox, I must also admit newly fallen snow is beautiful.

As beautiful as the snow is, it was quite a chore to go out and knock it off the branches. Many of my evergreen branches hang over the power lines here so leaving the snow on them isn't a great idea.

Take it from me though, don't throw your only snow shovel up in the tree to knock off the snow...also, don't throw the rest of your shoves in the tree to knock down the snow shovel. My advice? Find a ten foot long piece of PVC pipe and use it to get all those shovels and snow out of the trees.

Any of you who've read my blog for a long period of time have seen photos of my garden bicycle. Even in the snow it looks adorable, doesn't it?


If anybody is home here, they're going to be awfully cold...

But for those of you with the winter blahs (and who among us doesn't have those blahs?) this photo was taken February 20, 2008 so potentially this what's waiting under all that snow.

So take heart, spring is truly around the corner!

Melanie

My Garden

Each year I visit a good number of gardens. They are always inspiring to me, filled with ideas, new plant material, a wonderful expression of passion.

The feeling though of being in my own garden, is almost impossible to describe. There's passion for the plant material that is growing there. Joy for the successes I've had. Dreams are made each and every day and hope always abounds.

Maybe that's why the depths of winter are so hard on gardeners. Looking out at the bleak, dreary landscape, it's hard to imagine that it will one day be lush and green.

I didn't have the heart to photograph the dingy piles of old snow, covered with thrown bits of gravel. The mushy muddy ruts in the driveway are even less attractive, not much interest in the plant material that's out there either.

I'm so grateful for my photos, they are my window to what was and what will be once again. Yesterday I finally fulfilled one of my major "to-do's" and downloaded all my photo files onto a new external hard drive. I think that if I lost all my windows, my life would truly be dark.

So a reminder to all of you, I'm always encouraging you to take photos in your garden. Well, don't forget to back them up too!

Off to gaze out some more windows,
Melanie