This is the season for hellebores — in Northeastern gardens at least . I ’ve been impressed by the way mine bounced decently back up after being completely flatten out and wilted by freeze down temps earlier this calendar month . Though they ’ve been a recurrent plant of the year , and are becoming a common sight in more North American gardens , here in Buffalo there are still only a couple place to buy even the mainstream diverseness , genus Helleborus x hybridus(Lenten stand up ) . I ’ve postal service - place all of mine , and yearn some day to order some of the raw hybrids ( doubles and strange colors ) developed by Dan Hinkley .
I ’m not an expert on hellebores by any substance ; for that you want to check out Transatlantic Plantsman Graham Rice , who ( with Elizabeth Strangeman ) wrote the book on them : The Gardener ’s scout to Growing Hellebores(two versions of it ) . So that ’s why I leave it to Rice to comment on the new American book on hellebores by C. Colston Burrell and Judith Knott Tyler ( with a foreword by Hinkley ) , which he calls “ invaluable . ” Here ’s an extract from the review he published on his blog , Transatlantic Plantsman
The increasing number of hybrids between species , some extremely surprising , are discussed and illustrate while the treatment of the vast variety of forms of H. x hybridus guide a commendably realistic course . There is no farsighted descriptive listing of cultivar , so few of which are actually available . rather there are riveting accounts of the work of a range of stock breeder and agriculturist from both sides of the Atlantic . Readers will be impressed by recent achievements in North America build on earlier body of work in Britain . This generous inclination to recognize the work of other enthusiasts on both sides of the Atlantic is a dramatic feature of the whole book .
I have nothing more to add except that Timber Press has post me a transcript of this beautiful leger ( shown above ) , which I have not open up and would love to pass it along to a Garden Rant reader . It ’s not on the dot swag , but after the racy give-and-take of the ethics of giveaway and freebee , I ’d like to reenforce our determination to share with our readers whatever come to us through our love of gardening — and writing about gardening .
So , do you grow hellebores ? Have you attempt any of the raw varieties ? How do you keep hellebore from wilting in the vase when you cut them ? Did your hellebore make it through our horrific other spring ? Do recite !
At 4 p.m. EST today , I will put the figure of all who have commented about hellebore in a hat and pick one person , to whom I will station this book . ( If you do n’t require the ledger but are annotate anyway , then just say so . )
We will be figure out with Timber and other publishers ( we trust ) to arrange more giveaway of late release on horticulture . Stay tuned !
AND THE WINNER IS :
NANCY ! !
Thanks everybody for playing along . This is a great al-Qur’an , Nancy . You ’ll astound your acquaintance with your hellebore knowledge .
And now back to our regularly scheduled computer programming : Global warming!Home Depot!Clogs , dammit !
