Hellebores 2010

[David Nicholson]

Very nice Michael. The Hellebore season seems to me to have been much longer this year.

[gote]

I am later than all of you as always. My H orientalis are not even all out yet. This is a self sown seedling that I find very nice.
I have noted that the last of my Harwingtons nearly died this year whereas all my seedlings survive well.
It seems that my winters kill those which do not have the genes of survival in the cold.
Cheers
Göte. 

[Calvin Becker]

A few hellebores flowering now in the Southern hemisphere:

Plants were bought on Saturday hence the bags in the photos.

[fleurbleue]

Hi Calvin, the last one is very amazing 

[Calvin Becker]

It is strangely appealing. The nursery owner actually gave it to me as she said nobody else who visits would appreciate it as they all like the 'pretty' ones.

[Lesley Cox]

Some nice plants there Calvin. The second double appeals to me. I wonder if the "odd" one has some H. torquatus blood in it. The leaves are different from the usual hybridus types, as well as the colouring of course

[angie]

Hi Calvin, just finished cutting all my dead flowers of my Hellebores yesterday, they have done all there seeding so its lovely to see all your lovely flowers. I cant throw away any seedling so my potting up area is getting a bit full. I don't like giving them away till I see what the flower is like.

Angie

[t00lie]

Not happy with how i have been capturing whites and yellows i finally got round to rereading my camera instruction booklet   (i've only had the point and shoot for 8 months --duh!!  )

After a bit of experimenting and success with manually adjusting the* brightness setting,(exposure compensation),under 'Foliage', i went on to take a number of shots of plants with other colours--I was surprised to see how well i was able to capture shadows from the effects of light as it hit each Hellebore by going down *2 steps (increments).

Other than a slight amendment for sharpness pics are as i took them.  

Cheers dave.

  

[fleurbleue]

Very nice "things" Dave  Thanks for sharing with us these winter beauties 

[t00lie]

Very nice "things" Dave  Thanks for sharing with us these winter beauties 

Pleased you enjoyed them Nicole.

It was a bit of an effort to get close enough to the ground to be able to get underneath the flower to take the pics looking up.

I picked a few different stems this morning and held them up to the sky and got similar results to yesterday,so that is how i will view Hellebores from now on ,as there is so much more detail that is revealed with a good light behind the flower head.

Cheers dave.

[kiwi]

Very nice Dave, heres some shots of my new ones.

[gote]

--I was surprised to see how well i was able to capture shadows from the effects of light as it hit each Hellebore by going down *2 steps (increments).

Nice hellebores Mine are six months away.
I found that with my Panasonic I had to decrease exposure by one to two stops for all whitish flowers.
I now use a Canon and the problem has disappeared.
Cheers
Göte

[gote]

Skimming back in the thread I see the discussion about Helleborus thibetanus and zones.

Helleborus thibetanus is VERY frost hardy. Every year I see it starting to emerge too early and I suspect that it will die in the winter.
However, when the snow recedes it has grown to early bud stage under the snow. This year we had -26°C but a lot of snow but other years with less snow and perhaps only -20° it was the same procedure.

The North American zone-system was initiathed by Alfred Rehder who was a tree specialist. The Swedish system is based upon which fruit trees than can grow reliably. Both system make sense for trees and shrubs but is pretty useless when it comes to plants that die down in the winter. The amount of snow, length of cold period, amount of moisture in the soil etc makes such a difference to the survival that the air temperatures are very secondary.

I find that the only reliable way to determine hardiness of a certain plant in a certain location is to actually grow the plant in that location.

Cheers
Göte