Helleborus niger and Helleborus orientalis

by Lynda Lowman on December 30, 2002

One is H. niger and the other is H. orientalis. It’s the niger that is blooming now. The O blooms closer to Easter. The ‘Lady’ series is H x hybridus Lady. To paraphrase an article in BBC Gardener’s World, “Exciting colour options are now available to gardeners with the introduction of a new series of hellebores bred by Gisela Schmiemann in Germany.” Hopefully, I can get the garden center in Creston, BC to bring the series in for sale. The colors are really spectacular. The blue is the deepest and the yellow is sharp and bright. On another note…….night before last we received another six inches of snow. It was bright when I got up at midnight to take care of ‘the necessaries’, and ’sitting on the throne, gazing out into the back yard’, who should stroll out from the trees, but two lovely young does! I spent over an hour watching them pick through the perennial bed munching roses, helichrysum, residual asparagus fronds and the odd blue berry and raspberry twig. Taking into consideration we are almost in the city limits where most yards are lit, dogs abound and traffic is always there, I couldn’t get over the resiliency of these two ladies….coming to terms with foraging in the suburbs.

Gardening is not some sort of game by which one proves his superiority over others, nor is it a marketplace for the display of elegant things that others cannot afford. It is, on the contrary, a growing work of creation, endless in its changing elements. It is not a monument or an achievement, but a sort of traveling, a kind of pilgrimage you might say, often a bit grubby and sweaty though true pilgrims do not mind that. A garden is not a picture, but a language, which is of course the major art of life.

Henry Mitchell