new Hellebore

[Maggi Young]

Lovely photos, Chris... and Happy Birthday!

[Joakim B]

My wish for Your birthday came threw 
Plants flowering so that You could share the pics. Thank You and have a nice bithday and weekend.
Kind regards
Joakim

[Diane Whitehead]

Those are lovely, Chris.  Pluto may be an ancestor of some of the hellebores with red veins and a thin red edge that I am growing. I wonder if there are any other colours that form the same pattern?

Do Slaty Blue's leaves remain dark?

[Geebo]

Again Chris a very happy Birthday from here,
Just post here a few more of your Hellebores grown from Your valuble seeds,and Yes I do like that Pluto Very much,think i have a few in bud who will be  close,keep you to date on that,thanks for the lovely pics Chris.
Cheers,
Geebo

[chris]

thanks for the whishes,
it is verry buzzy here, we made already 63 crossings and planning a lot more, Diane most of the crosses with good veins are children from another torquatus, H.torq.'Strippy' I will show you when it flowers, it is a wild clone find by Will Mc Lewin, the brackts of H.'Slaty Blue remains dark, the new leaves are first dark but in summer they turn dark green.
I like to see plants from seed who looks verry good at the parents,Geebo thanks for showing them
here a good anemone flowering and a yellow with golden nectaries

[ian mcenery]

Hi Chris Great pictures and plants. Do you have any pictures of how you go about crossing hellebores it would be good if you could show these for example do you open pollinate or emasculate flowers?

[johngennard]

I too would be interested in how you do your crossing.Are the plants grown in the open ground or in pots?
I love the purple anemone centre.

[henkw]

When you look on the internet, you will see a lot names for double

Helleborus × hybridus:


Helleborus orientalis Double Queen

Helleborus orientalis washfield double

Helleborus orientalis DOUBLE VISION

Helleborus Heronswood Double Strain

Helleborus × hybridus Party Dress Group

Helleborus × hybridus 'Harvington Double

Helleborus × hybridus 'Hidcote Double'

Helleborus × hybridus Homelea hybrids

Helleborus × hybridus Ashwood Garden hybrids, double-flowered

Etc.


Can anyone tell me more, are they all the same?



Will somebody be so kind and tell me a bit more about this Helleborus Niger:

Helleborus niger 'Ras Buis'

An elderly friend keeps talking about this Niger, that this the best Niger around?


Please keep posting those nice pictures.

Henk Westerhof

[chris]

can anyone tell where my reply is gone?
I was posting at the same time that Henk was and something went wrong I guess, it was a long storry about my crosses with some pics attached

[Maggi Young]

Sorry that your reply has been lost, Chris. We would be so pleased if you would take the time to make it again, there is obviously a lot in interest int your hellebores.
More fine forms in these pix...delicious flowers!Love the picotee.

[Diane Whitehead]

Chris,
I lost a message too, so when I rewrote it, I copied it and put it on my desktop on a little program called a "sticky note".  Then if it went missing again, I could just copy and paste without having to write it a third time.  It didn't happen the second time, but I think from now on I will copy and save any long posts, just in case.  Short notes like this one are easy to redo, but long ones can take a long time, particularly if you have to check your data and a few books to make sure all your information is correct.

[SueG]

Love the pictures, my hellebores are only just coming into bud, no open flowers yet.

John, you asked about seedlings dying - I've had this too and reading my hellebore book, they suggest it's because the stems on small seedlings are very delicate and if touched while potting up, bruise, rot and thats it, plant gone. Since I saw that, I now leave my seedlings in a pot for at least 12-18 months and only split them up then. They are quite sturdy plants ans the stems are MUCH tougher and don't seem to bruise and rot at all.

this may help you

Sue

[Paddy Tobin]

Chris,
The picotee hellebores are particularly beautiful. Great photographs also.

Henk,
As with other plants, once they become popular it is financially attractive to breeders to put names on plants with little or no discernible differences. It makes money.

Paddy

[Diane Whitehead]

I was taught to handle seedlings only by their cotyledons, never by their stems, so I haven't had small seedlings dying from anything I've done.  Instead, my seedlings of H. x hybridus were eaten by rats last year.  They bit off the cotyledons, leaving the little stems sticking up.  Most of these stems went on to produce proper leaves, much to my surprise.  I now put hardware cloth (wire net) over newly-germinated seedlings.

My problem is with potted plants of x sternii backcrossed to lividus  -  sturdy looking two year old plants which break off at ground level. They have such a little stem to support a big plant which moves around in the wind, or when I move the pot. I use sterile potting mix, but I guess it could later be colonized by fungi and such.

[snowdropman]

Chris - lovely pictures - very delicate markings on the picotee & the pink anenome form is quite a stunner