Helleborus x hybridus

[Palustris]

Just a reminder that now is the time to go out, weather permitting, and remove the old leaves from the hybrid Hellebores. There is a nasty fungus (Black Death!) which begins on the old leaves and travels down them as they die. So, removal reduces the attack considerably. Also it does mean that you can see the flowers better.
This only applies to the hybrid tpes. Things like Hh. niger, foetidus, corsiscus thibetanus need their leaves. On these one removes only dead or dying or infected leaves.

[Tom]

Thanks Eric, I now know what I am going to do this afternoon. Tom.

[Palustris]

Started on ours this morning. Not too bad if you only have a few, but a few hundred clumps is hard work and they are all under shrubs and things so the wet branches drip down ones neck.
Also a good time to remove the old leaves from Epimediums too.

[bossgard]

I opened a Garden Magazine that I subscribe to last night and it had a full page advertising Heronswood Nursery which is the nursery started by Plantsmen Dan Hinkley  and his partner Robert Jones. Heronswood is/was located in WA-US not too far away from me. Have never been there, but have been to the locality. It had been sold several years ago to the Burpee Seed Company.

As I understand, quite a bit of the stock has been moved elsewhere, but the gardens are still here, and evidently open to the public. I have a 2004 catalog of when they were here, and it lists about 50 of his Helleborus. I thought the photography was exceptional on their current website and they have some Helleborus shown there. I do not grow any but I thought you might be interested: http://www.heronswood.com/.

- Toby   

[Tom]

As I was tidying up my hellebores I discovered lots of new hellebore seedlings which is nice, with lots of varieties growing near each other, you never know what you'll get. Secondly, Digitalis lutea
(Yellow Foxglove) is something of a pest, if one is not careful it will colonise the whole garden.

[Palustris]

When do you, if you do, move youe Hellebore seedlings?  We have, like you, a fair number of variations of them. I have reasonable success with seed sowing, but moving them from self sown stuff does not seem to work as well. We have a really nice green flowered one with a red centre which has self seeded, so hopefully some of them may be similar.

[Palustris]

Finished cutting them down today. We must have about 200 clumps of them and with an average of 10 stems per clump, that is a lot of snipping! Going to be a good year for flowers to judge by the buds.

[Tom]

Eric, do you mulch or feed your hellebores? Mine are heathy but the clumps have not increased much over the years. Once the weather warms a bit I am going to try potting up some of the seedlings, even if some survive I will be happy. The parent plants are all good forms so there might be something nice amongst the seedlings.