March 1st Hellebores in the garden

Hellebores are becoming one of my favs....a must have when I can plant in our garden. They do take a few years to establish I've read so I will have to be patient!

You've got some really beautiful plants there....thanks for posting the photos.

brian i have loads of seedling ................ wot shud i do , leave them or prick them into pots , have got a few more this week , i love that yellow one stunning .......... not seen that be fore

What a wonderful selection you have Brian. I love them all. The yellow one is great, and the doubles. Do they all self seed, or just certain ones.

Cristina
If they are anything like mine this year you would be for ever, i tend to wait for the first true leaves in the second year (see pic) it would be a bit of a gamble with just the cotyledons showing,but if you are impetus and you have lots give it a try.

Cinders the semi doubles are self seeding but i did hand pollinate last year,not sure if i needed to.

Thanks Brian

these are wonderful plants, lucky you.

Such beauties all of them what a wonderful variety you have there the seedlings well reminds me of hundreds and thousands on a cake lol

Superb blog & pics Brian, wonderful, really my faves. Love the yellow & double cream ones.

Yes me too. Lovely selection. And thanks for the picture of the seedlings. Ken went weeding yesterday.I forgot to mention the patch by the hellebores may be seedlings..he did leave a few thank goodness!!

lovely hellebores brian, love the dark one so striking, think they look great once in bigger clumps, lots of colour, even better when they self seed to :o)

thanks brian .......... i will leave them as i wud like them to spread where they are then ..............

Cristina
I think nature has a way of thinning them in the first year
because there never seems to be the large numbers when they come up second year plenty but not overcrowded in the way my picture shows them now.

Wow, what a beautiful selection of Hellebores. Like others, I like the yellow one particularly. I like most of the others too! Fab glog, gone to my favourites too!

Brian what sort of compost would you recommend for planting up the self seeded plants in. I tend to use John Innes No 3 for most of my plant pots but would this be ok for hellebores. I also have some seedlings and I would like to have a go at potting them up and trying to grow them on for the garden. Many thanks in anticipation.

PS Love the photographs - love the hellebores

Olive
They are not that fussy with me in the open garden the seedlings thrive on heavy clay ,however in pots i would use 50/50 John Innes & and a peat based compost mixed.bearing in mind the fertiliser in compost only lasts a few months i would add a small amount more,one of the slow release or even a bit of bone meal.The name of the game is to keep them growing as we know we have a several year wait at best.
Brian

Is that 7 years until they flower?

lulu
several was 3 when i was at school(long time ago) they may have changed it since.lol
seriously they may take 4 from germination

Thanks for that, I have a ffriend who's garden is full of last years seedlings, she may want to know.

you have some real beauties there Bjs, strangely it is the dark coloured hellebores that seem to have survived the bad weather best - im sure i had more white ones but perhaps they are later?

Foot note.
We on GOY a week or so ago were talking about the hellebore flower and that the part which we assumed were the petals are in fact sepals ,the petals being insignificant in the centre of the flower, it is only today I have realised that the close up picture Above shows the green petals very well,These drop off after a short while leaving just the sepals

so i will have to wait 3 4 years 4 them to flower ............... !!!

Cristina
Patience is a Virtue,you have to think positive ( thats what me doctor says) lol
You can always buy 3 year old plants.!!!! its only money.

looking forward to visiting the nursery bjs, after seeing your blog. Lovely photos I can see why you like hellebores. I bet I come away with one!

Teds
Or two or three.!!!!

Should always buy in threes Teds, lol.

have bought 3 this week allready all lol brian .............. have to sneak em in now as oh tidyed my shed out and put all my pots on shelves , he cud not beleave how many there were lol . think i start a new biss. sell them back to g.c .hehe

I seem to buy in threes or fours and sometimes Lots and lots just jump into my trolley!!

Lulu I wonder what name they give to that addiction because I suffer from that also. lol. We could all get together and sit in a circle in the garden and talk about what started us off and how we cope with our addiction. lol.

Bjs have just planted some of my bigger seedlings up in John Innes No. 3 will see what happens to them. Fingers crossed, thanks for the advice, thought I would experiment and see what happened.

Think you should be called 'goypots', Cristina & Olive, do you have a school nearby, they might be able to use old pots!!? We give ours to our church summer fete garden stall!

When I get too many Grandmage, the OH takes them and puts them in the auction rooms and they go for a few pence each. lol. waste not want not eh!! Someone is always looking for something in there.

Oh Oliveoil, trying to come up with a good reposte! The love of all things that grow and flower is an amazing thing. I once worked as a carer for a dear old boy in London. He said to me one year that would I buy all white flowers for his garden as they were easier for him to see. I bought all white except for one bright blue plant (can't remember which one now) and having lunch in the garden one day he said "Little Witch, there is a blue plant in my garden!" I said to him "Tom, I thought you couldn't see blue"! Lol
Bless him. But it was fab to go to the garden centre each year with over £200 to spend on his garden!

Don't you just love the old dears, they make me laugh. Nice to be able to spend that amount of money on the garden though.

I am sure I will regret it when I can't afford anything in the not too distant future!!!!

No Lulu you will always manage to squeeze that extra bit for the garden I know I do, I would rather not buy clothes than plants. Some would say yep we have noticed lol.

Pity I didn't have a bet on a horse that won yesterday!! Could have afforded lots of plants AND the new jumper I bought yesterday!!

Lulu...you've given me a chuckle with your horse bet and new jumper purchase :) I keep saying I need to win the lottery...trouble is I don't even buy a ticket! How crazy is that!! Hubby buys them once a week online but maybe if I did as well it would improve the odds? Hmm

Happy gardening & budgeting :) and good luck at the races (winks...lol)

The trouble with self-seeded hellebores is being firm enough to only keep good ones after they flower for the first time, lol. I particularly love the pure white ones.

Wagger
Yes you look at pretty speckled faces love it, then like most things you start getting picky.I doubt if i will ever run out of room for them.

A lovely selection and haven't you been lucky with your seedling semi-doubles too. Your fortunate not to run out of room for them, I'm thinking I may have to take a few over to the allotment soon. There's a name for snowdrop maniacs, someone ought to come up with one for hellebores as they are just as addictive.

Beautiful!

Beautiful variety of hellebores. I really hope mine self seed eventually because they are not cheap!

Lauram
If yours are flowering this year hand pollinate them with a paint brush or even your finger, they need a little help flowering as they do very early,certainly in the UK there are very few bees or other insects to help.Some set on there own others not ,the yellow one on this page never set any seed till i hand pollinated it
And sow as soon as ripe or let it fall to the ground as you can see I do.

What a fantastic selection of hellebores, I really must look out to see if we have any seedlings.

Bjs I planted a couple of my self sets up and they look to be doing well, I am looking forward to them producing flowers to see which colour they throw out.