With temperatures in the 70s and 80s in southeastern Pennsylvania this week, gardening has to take second place to a more critical spring ritual here at Hayefield: freeing “the boys” from their year’s worth of heavy fleece so they don’t pass out from the heat. It’s rather early this year: Last year, my notes say, I didn’t start until May 7. There’s always the worry that the weather might turn cold again, and once the fleece is off, you can’t very well stick it back on. It doesn’t look like cold, rainy weather is very likely any more, though, so we have to take our chances. (more…)
Building the Perfect Hybrid Hellebore - Part 2
Text and photos ©Nancy J. Ondra
Continuing from Part 1…
Flower colors. I think the only color in hybrid hellebores that’s rather boring is green. I can find charm in other sorts of green flowers, and a bright Granny-Smith-apple green isn’t bad, I guess. But propagating hybrid hellebores with green sepals (the parts that look like petals) mostly seems pointless to me, since you can already find nice greens in straight H. odorus, H. dumetorum, H. foetidus, and other hellebore species. I particularly dislike many of the greens that are optimistically described as yellow in catalog copy. I’m sorry: They’re not yellow, they’re not even chartreuse - they’re green. (more…)
Building the Perfect Hybrid Hellebore - Part 1
Text and photos ©Nancy J. Ondra
Back in my March Bloom Day post, I made a comment about loving all of my hybrid hellebores (Helleborus x hybridus). At the time, I meant it. But now that they’ve been in bloom for a few weeks, I find myself qualifying that statement frequently. Some clumps I visit daily or even more often, even if I have to go out of my way a bit. Others I walk past multiple times a day and seldom notice. And still others make me wish I had a shovel in hand so I could end their (and my) misery. (more…)
