some early hellebores

[Stephen Vella]

nice double yellow Michael..Im working on some double yellows, as the ones availabe here are more green than yellow, so im back crossing to some nice single yellows and some with red spots and red dark centres..fingers cross they flower this year...

[gote]

You are all showing such beautiful hellebores. I wish i could grow them.
I once bougth five good hybrids in England, brought them home and lost four the first winter.
I have got foetidus from Spain, Bavaria and provenance unknown. All dead when trying to flower.
I have sown torquatus and all seedlings died the first winter.
Orientalis origin Turkey survives but not all in all winters.
The stars in hardiness are
viride, never a loss in 15 years, thibetanus, never a loss in 10 years ."abshasicus" No losses in ten years. niger, no loss in five years but that is a local clone.
I do have orientallis hybrids - self sown and hardy by natural selection but not so beautiful as those shown here.
If someone has too many seedlings Iwould be glad to try them for hardiness but I have decided not to buy any more. The yield is to low.
It is too early to show any photos. The day before yesterday no one was higher than 5 cm.
Göte
(Envy is one of the seven mortal sins is it? I plead guilty)
 

[Michael J Campbell]

Gote ,I will send you a few. When I am weeding again I will dig up some for you.

cheers

[arisaema]

H. thibetanus

[Guff]

1-2 Elizabeth Town Hellebores seedlings
3 Pine Knot Farms seedling

[Paul T]

Guff,

Lovely doubles!

Arisaema,

The thibetanus are great!

[Thomas Seiler]

Not striking but charming: Helleborus torquatus northern form
I bought it in 1996 from Elizabeth Strangman at her Washfield Nursery.

[Paul T]

I just love the torquatus leaves.

[Thomas Seiler]

It might be interesting, to compare the different Helleborus leaves, which have now emerged:
H. atrorubens
H. croaticus
H. multifidus subsp. istriacus
H. multifidus subsp. multifidus
H. multifidus subsp. bocconei
H. odorus
H. torquatus southern form from Montenegro
H. torquatus northern form

[Paul T]

Good range of leaves to show the differences. 

[Guff]

Elizabeth Town Hellebore Aglaia.

Will probably have a darker purple hue/color next year. I grew this one under lights, one year from germination to see a flower.

[Maggi Young]

One year for a flower? That's terrific, Guff, well done!

[Guff]

Thanks Maggi.

Wanted to see if I could get one to flower in one years time.  In a cool basement they continue to put up more and more leaves. I was feeding them every 12-18 days. I have 3 more Aglaia plants, but they didn't put up a flower stalk.

1-Aglaia

[Chuck]

I like the first one Helleborus`Winter Jewel Double Painted’

[Maggi Young]

Tom Mitchell of Evolution Plants  has been on his travels again and from tomorrow his new list of seeds for sale, and the wonderfully readable catalogues  that he produces, with so many tales of dering-do, habitat and local cuisine, quite apart from information on the seeds he offers will also be there to download. The low resolution form is still around 10MB so give the hamster that powers your computer some extra feed tonight!

The catalogue lists seeds of Galanthus, Helleborus and other species that Tom has collected in the wild in 2012. There are three files involved. The first is a high resolution pdf, which displays the images as well as possible. This is a very large file (about 110MB). The second file is a low resolution version of the same file (about 10MB). If you have a slow internet connection, he suggests you download this version. The third file is a pdf order form. All three files will be available on www.evolution-plants.com  from tomorrow. A printed version of the catalogue will be available next week.


Edit Saturday : The order form doesn't appear to be accessible as yet on th E-P site so I'll add  a reduced res. version  here