Lovely pics- one can never have too many hellebores! I like the Harlow Carr hybrids- do you know the parentage? And where to find plants?...Are they a Canadian thing? Do they self seed (and do you have seedlings to trade?)
Terry,
The Harlow Carr hybrids are grown from seeds through the Royal Horticultural Society's seed distribution program. Costs about $20US for 20 packets of seeds, available to members. I will be getting more seeds and they usually arrive in April. I notice that you are in Washington, so I can't really exchange across the border with you. You could join the RHS - they do provide a phytosanitary certificate to get seeds into the US. On top of that, you get their monthly magazine, "The Garden". It is my favourite gardening magazine.
It's not a problem to send seed across borders in small quantities for personal use. I have done it countless times, properly declared, and sometimes checked by Customs.
Thanks, I will look into seeds from RHS online- tho my husband would probably say we have enough hellebores, as ours self seed quite vigorously. Here's a few of our favorites-
Thank you for all the pictures. I have purchased a Wester Flisk this spring and am very pleased to see such a great picture of what it could grow into. Maybe I will print off a picture and show the little plant, to inspire it.
I also have a small patch of H. foetidus of a non-Wester Flisk variety. I have a few others of the hybrid hellebores, but none as thriving as yours yet. Very impressive.
When we budget household expenditures, we translate the cost into the number of hellebores we think we could buy.
Terry,
Those double flowered Hellebores sure look nice in your pictures. I saw some in a local nursery recently, but wasn't overly enthused by the flowers in real life. Somehow, I still prefer my hellbores to be "single". (E-mail me or post me a private message re-seeds.)
I have two small seedlings of open pollinated H foetidus, but it probably won't flower for another 2 years. The 'Walter Fisk" in the pictures have not really opened up yet. I will post more pictures when they do.
I find the seedlings of H orientalis exciting to have around. The whole of my court yet is overgrown with them, but I won't throw them out because every one of them is a potential suprise. The three best variants I have so far are a pure white flowered on, one that is dark, really darkly coloured (I nicknamed "dark lady"!) and the pale pink one that you see in the picture.
Weekend Gardener- I agree many of the double hellebores do not have good color and can't compare with the singles. This particular plant has the best pink I've seen on a double, no washout or green in it.
Do you have a "tried and true" method of starting hellebore seed? I know that mine self seed but sometimes trying to start seeds is more difficult than it would appear just by observing mother nature - I also suspect that there are many more seeds scattered by the plants than I would recieve in a packet.
Unfortunately, the flowers on my lower growing varieties were quite damaged by the rain this year. The bright green corsican hellebores have held up well.
I have collected seed (fresh) and sown it in flats, which were then kept in a protected area outside and kept watered and weeded. We had good germination, but we decided it was less work to dig up seedlings from around the plants and grow them on in pots than the seed in flats method. We still had to transplant from the flats, so we didn't really save any work that way.
WCG and all--like Terry I often find it just as easy to dig up seedlings from the garden for growing on, but for large quantities and selected seed sources, I do a lot of sowing into containers, too.
Hellebores do need to be sown promptly while still fresh, so it's best to let the seeds dry about a week, then start them on their way. My "trick" is to mix the seeds with some peat/sand moistened, in a ziploc, and keep them inside till the weather cools Oct/Nov. Then, put the ziploc out where it experiences the outdoor cool temps, like an open porch or cold frame. When the seeds just start to sprout, often in Nov/Dec, sow them onto the surface of containers of potting mix, and keep them in a protected spot outdoors, a cold frame is ideal.
The months in the ziploc saves me a lot of bothering with watering/weeding of flats or seed pots. Also, by sowing into communal pots, the deep column of potting media saves me much watering compared to flats...often in our winters there's almost never a need to water until the seedlings have grown to the transplanting stage.
Tho hellebores somehow got a reputation for being difficult, I've really found them dead easy to germinate and grow, and very tough hardy little guys when transplanting too!
Thanks Glen. I am printing out your seed starting suggestions for future reference. Now I am going to look for hellebore seed sources. Thought I might try Gardens North. http://gardensnorth.com/site/
Hi Julibrissin
I joined this forum to tell you how beautiful your double pink hellebore is. I am new to hellebores, I do not have very many plants but do have a few seedlings. I can only hope to have a beautiful double pink like yours one day.
I agree, that is truly a nice double. I think the colors are getting better in the doubles- I saw some good ones at a nursery the other day and they were good, clear colors.
Thank you, that liked Helleborus.
2008. forest we sowed a seed, fortunately these his big percentage hatched.
For me the most loved one the double kinds. Too bad that it is possible to receive a colour mix of these only.
