Plant Delights and Juniper Level Botanic Gardens

We went to the open house at Plant Delights Nursery yesterday, the focus was on hellebores. It was at least 10 years since I visited there, back then I didn't know what a hellebore was. I do recall spending $125 and getting a box and a half of plants, this time $125 bought a half box of plants. Just about everything they sell is rare and unusual, so one would expect to pay more.

Some impressive gardens don't you think?

One thing that was a surprise was all the trillium in the gardens, never seen so many in all the years I have been gardening.. 

The gardens are called Juniper Level Botanic Gardens

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Meg, bought the above trillium Oconee Yellow, we have a few trilliums in our garden. Maybe one day we'll have a mass of trilliums like shown below.

 I'm a big fan of cyclamen we have maybe 6 varieties in our garden, I added 2 more today, one of them a white blooming cyclamen.

Ok now for some hellebores from the gardens.

Above is a single flowering hellebore.

Here is a semi double hellebore.

Above and below some very nice double hellebores.

 Yellow hellebores used to be somewhat rare, not anymore.

 This semi double I've love to have in our garden one day.

 Below is Penny's Pink we have it in our garden expecting it to open up any day.

New hellebores & plants for the garden!

Hey everyone we are now 4 years into this blog! Hope you have enjoyed it. I still have visitors that were commenting in my very early posts, I'm glad to still have you visiting!!

Anyway as you know we visited the Pine Knot Frams Hellebore Festival last Saturday. We picked up some new plants for the garden! In case you want to get some of these Pine Knot Farms Hellebore Festival is still going on the next two Fridays and Saturdays, they have lots of cool plants!

Double hellebores was our goal, but as always I get a little side tracked.

We used to have only one yellow hellebore in our garden. This is our new yellow one, above and below. Just love those pink outer edges.

This one is my favorite one of the whole group. Its a bit on the small side, but stunning. They had a couple of hellebores close to this and larger, but the outer pink veins called me to buy this one.

Helleborous Atrorubens X hybridus

Could not pass this one up, they had several of these. This is a species hellebore crossed with hybridus.

Helleborus Liguricus a recently classified new species of Hellebore!

 Don't see many double yellow hellebores! This one is going in our garden!

 Just liked this one, nice blend of colors in this double.

My first pick when we got there. This is very dark for a double hellebore. We already have a smaller lighter one in the garden.

Every year at the Hellebore Festival they have some Parks drought resistant primrose hybrids grown in Chapel Hill.

Meg picked this Witchhazel up called "Aurora" it is supposed to be the largest blooming witch hazel and one of the most fragrant. It was heavenly riding home in the car for an hour enjoying its aroma! The witch hazels were brought in from Rare Find Nursery in NJ.

Here is a Small Anise Tree, illicium_parviflorum it is called 'Florida Sunshine'. This is fragrant and will make a nice addition to our garden.

We also picked up a Harry Lauder's walking stick, Corylus avellana'Contorta'for the garden, very cool plant. And we got three new cyclamens, two spring bloomers and a fall bloomer too.

First of February Hellebores

Folks,

Back to cold weather again this morning the thermometer said 21 degrees at 8am this morning. The pond and bird feeders are covered in ice. My mission today once it warms up more is to build a bird cage for 5 Ringed-neck Doves. Meg's daughter is leaving them in the care of Meg's school for a while. She has had them in her screened porch, I heard last night she has been finding eggs.

Anyway the hellebores are moving right along, noticing lots of babies around them. Sorry if my memory fails me Tina sent me some seeds last year, there are babies where I spread them now! My 'Gold Finch" hellebore which bloomed wonderfully last year has babies too, pretty excited about them.

Here they are from the garden yesterday.

Here is 'Winter's Song' bought it 2 years ago at Southern States, it had close to 50 blooms on it when I bought it. Thought it was a goner by the end of the first season. Season two one flower stalk, it lived IMO barely. Back in good standing this year.

This most likely a Hellebous Niger. We've had it for years, finally it blooms. Lovely foliage too.

This deep red Hellebore was one of the $10 quart Pine Knot Farms un bloomed possible doubles. Well you can see it is not a double, but still a winner, I love it!

This pink is one of our really big helleobore plants, has lots of babies under it.

This is the second year for Helleborus Viridis a species hellebore from Northern Italy. These are supposed to be hard to grow, it dies back over the summer then returns in the winter. This was smashed by a big hickory limb and lived!.

 'Red Lady" it was one of two of our first hellebores purchased here. The other 'Blue Lady' in not blooming yet.

I put this one on my facebook page yesterday. It is another of the un bloomed doubles I got from PKF. Lovely isn't it.

This is the deepest red we have it is called "Birkins" was given to me by my friend Breezy.

 Another PKF un bloomed double. Think I'll get a few more of these mystery plants this year.

 We have had this for 3 or 4 years finally a first bloom 'Swirling Skirts' Wow!

This pink one is small but wow!

Another PKF double, this is the whitest hellebore we have!

Here is one of the 2 tiny cyclamen we bought last year at the PKF Pine Knot Farms Hellebore Festival, it is a 75 minute drive from here. Think we'll get a few more there is a guy that brings at least a dozen different ones. The Festival is February 22 -23 and March 1-2  we hope to go this year.

We it is now 31 degrees out there I'm going to build that bird cage.