Monday, February 27, 2012

Our new Hellebores from the Festival

Hope everyone enjoyed the last series of photos of Pine Knots best hellebores in their garden. Here are the 7 hellebores and 2 cyclamens we purchased at the hellebore festival.

 This double hellebore (above and below are the same) was likely the prettiest one we picked out. Granted now we arrived 30 minutes into day 2 of the festival a lot of the best doubles had been picked over. This one is on the smallish side, the view from the top is what drew me to this plant. Just so you know this is a one of a kind strain labeled simply Pine Knot Double Pink.

Here is Helleborus Viridus which was collected in the wild in Northern Italy. Saw photos of this on John's blog and just had to get one of these. This is a species of hellebore we didn't  have. Picked up Helleborus purpurascen collected in the wild in Romania last year, I thought the plant was dying in the heat of the summer, but now it looks great. If I was ever thinking about doing any cross breeding, these plants might make something different.

 Helleborus x 'Penny's Pink' (above and below) the only cloned hellebore we bought also the most expensive. Very impressive brand new sterile hybrid, read more about it here. I did not see any as pink as the photos on the link I just gave you. These were only available one to a customer.
 Above is the white double hellebore Meg picked out. Nice form and very white, slightly on the small side, but we really like it.
Above is what might be considered a semi double white picotee hellebore. It charmed us both right into our basket. We have one white picotee in our garden already, this one has a lot nicer form to it IMO.
 This beauty jumped right into the basket. Once home I realized one of the ones given to us by a friend that finally bloomed this year has the same coloring, but is not as pointed petaled as this one.

 Same here, just jumped into the basket. You can see our garden's hellebores from 2010 at this page. Some have been died, others have bloomed, I need to update it, but it is getting very hard to do because we have so many.

 I just could not resist buying these 2 Cyclamen coum above and below is 'Silver leaf White'

 This is also a Cyclamen coum above and below, the tag is out in the rain I'll add it later.
I could have bought 20 different hardy cyclamen, they always have some one selling them at the hellebore festival.

12 comments:

Kitty said...

MAN!!! Until I started paying attention to your garden, I never realized that hellebores are as varied as orchids.

Carol said...

Randy, These are lovely and beautiful photographs. I guess I am old fashioned when it comes to Hellebores. I just prefer the simply single ones the best. What a show you will have in your garden to go with your established collection. I love the cyclamen! I just saw tiny ones blooming down in the valley in the Smith College botanical gardens! Along with snowdrops and crocuses! Early!! It is great to see life stirring again!
Note~ I accidentally hit publish the other day and then had to go and delete the post on the W. Admirals. The post is truly up now. I could not figure out how to get rid of the little icon. Now I think I know.

sandy lawrence said...

Lovely choices! I always enjoy seeing your hellebores. If I didn't live in the TX Hill Country, I'd be right there on the hellebore collection band wagon. I'm adventurous with pushing the zone on plants, but it seems foolish to invest in one that doubtless would not survive the summer heat, regardless of care. I can grow the cyclamen, however, if I use shade cloth in summer (and plant in a mostly all-shade site). They even made it fine through the hellish last summer here, never going dormant. I was amazed.

Larry said...

Your choices are exceptionally lovely! Larry

Janet, The Queen of Seaford said...

I love your choices with all your plants. What beauties. I have some cyclamen in the ground, and they aren't blooming right now...hmmm, maybe I need some other varieties.

Janet, The Queen of Seaford said...

No place to click to get comments to my email? These changes are always confusing.

sweetbay said...

Nice! Are those hellebores as pink as they appear in the photos? Most of the ones I've seen tend to be more of a moody purple.

Victoria Williams said...

OMG. Every blossom was better than the last. Unbelievably pretty!

Kelly said...

...these are so beautiful! I learn something about flowers or bees almost every time I visit your blog!

Curbstone Valley Farm said...

I don't know how you manage to narrow your choices down to just a few, they're all gorgeous. I must admit though, I'm quite partial to Viridus, what a stunner!

NotSoAngryRedHead said...

LOVE the double white hellebore! Absolutely gorgeous!

Serenity Cove said...

LOVE the pink and white doubles!
Definitely going to see if I can find those.