What have you done in the garden today? Part 3

[ThreeRingCircus]

The old thread was filling up so I've created a new one!

Link to old thread: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/gardening/4823202-what-have-you-done-in-the-garden-today-part-2?reply=128367673

Sorry, and I'm triple posting (I am shattered; long week). I've barely got into my garden today, though I did cut some Daphne to put in the house, and I planted the last of the yews that will make a tiny hedge on one side of my gate. But, at work I got some gorgeous flowering hellebores out of the polytunnel and put them out for sale - there's a gorgeous glaucous purple single, and a dark, wine-colour double (a nice double, not a frou-frou one). And there is a chartreuse green double, which I quite like. There are also some picotee pinks/whites, and a double yellow that lots of people love. It was so satisfying seeing them flowering - I've been keeping an eye on them for months, because I love hellebores!

SarahAndQuack - That was pretty much my attitude. I didn’t regard screens as evil, but preferred my daughter to be doing rather than watching.

I just wrote a post to say I spent time today heaving trees around - the miserable bay in the front garden and olive in the back garden have now swapped places. There’ll be some finessing tomorrow, as it got dark before I’d quite finished. I also plan to move a peony which needs a better spot.

Those hellebores do sound gorgeous! Some of mine needed years to get going - I’d pretty much given up on them - but are lovely now.

Oh, wow, that sounds like a heavy day! But it is so nice when you feel you're putting things right, isn't it?

I find hellebores do less when for me (on sandy soil) than I would like, and can be a bit slow. But once they're established they're just so rewarding! I'm not sure I like some of the new hybrids I've seen - I love the proper, old-fashioned orientalis (which, I know, is properly h. x hybridus).

Well, I certainly hope I’ve put things right! I suspect the bay had been too long in the same pot, so I’m hoping repotting and a new location will lift it out of its slump. The olive tree, on the other hand, has been a marvel. I bought a second hand pot on eBay. When I collected it, the vendor apologised that she hadn’t had time to empty it, so it came with a tiny olive tree that was little more than a stick. It’s now a lovely small tree.

Not a fan of hellebores. Their faded look makes me think of plastic flowers,gathering dust. No offence to hellebore lovers...they just dont do it for me.

I know where you’re coming from, I think. There’s a sludgy pink to which all seedlings seem to revert and which I find very unappealing.

That's what I think of many of them, but this year I got some pure white ones on a whim when looking for something for the pots by the front door and I'd missed the boat on more obvious choices - they don't have that 'faded' effect. Not sure whether to plant them out when they've finished flowering or stow them in the pots.

I went to a snowdrop place yesterday, though they warned me that they had been very battered by the rain, which they had, but they had some very lovely hellebores some of which I craved, hellebores do that for me, and a beautiful spread of white and pink cyclamens circling an old tree stump, with a good few outliers ready to increase the circle in years to come.

Some pretty, and proper primroses too, I like the big brash cultivated primroses for their charisma and boldness, but the little pale yellow hedgerow primroses make my heart melt. Altogether a good visit, rain held off until the last twenty minutes.

I like the faded dusty pink of hellebores. We've mainly got white ones and they've looked lovely mingling with the snowdrops. At dawn and dusk that whole bed is lit up by them.

I admit, there are some new hellebores I really don't like - I hate anything that dies messily, and I know exactly what you mean about a plastic look, @Hedjwitch. However I don't find my old-fashioned orientalis types do that (and I don't let them revert to pink; I have dark and I have white, and when I get a pink seedling I chuck it).

Mine are the droopy variety- beautiful pink/purple colour but the flowers do not sit proudly to be admired.

Is this unusual?

No, that's the typical habit of hellebore x hybridus (what used to be called Hellebore orientalis). It is thought to be an evolutionary mechanism protecting the flowers from snow and frost. I actually really love this - I think it's so charming that you have to lift the flower to see inside. And this is why the Edwardians had such a thing for hellebore bowls, where you float the flowers on water.

There is a trend at the moment for hybridizing more varieties of hellebores (there was a breakthrough fairly recently, when people figured out how to cross out to other varieties that don't usually hybridize). Lots of the new ones do have upturned flowers (and very long, showy stems). But I don't think I like them. For starters, I don't think some breeders (naming no names) have bred enough strength into the stems, and I think they tend to go limp and rot off.

They just seem so sad to me!

They are quite melancholic, and delicate.

I have lots of different varieties as I find it miraculous they flower in the middle of winter when there's snow on the ground. And I love their antique nature and the fact I cut off the leaves that do tend to get diseased and they spring back to life with vigorous growth without batting an eye lid. Every few years I refresh the ones that have had their chips, Sarah Raven is a good supplier.

I have the advantage that I don’t get seedlings in my wet clay. So the only ones I have are ones I’ve bought (I don’t harvest seed). One was given me by a friend of my mother’s when we moved in almost 35 years ago. I have quite a range, from white to almost black, with different amounts of spotting. And lots of pink.

How interesting - my mum has clay soil, in some parts quite wet, and hellebores love her garden and seed like mad! She has some beautiful ones now (she doesn't breed them in a controlled way, but is quite keen on experimenting).

The almost black ones are just gorgeous - I love them.

Getting nervous about how close we are to 1000 posts - new thread here

Thank you!