I like to think they are shy, David Walther, co-owner with his wife Cathy, of
Spring Fever Nursery in Yankee Hill tells me, speaking of his beloved
hellebores. Many varieties of hellebores have flowers that face downward
because as winter bloomers they are trying to protect their pollen from wind and
rain and snow until pollination takes place. But the difference between the back
of a hellebore’s so-called bloom, and its wide – often surprisingly beautiful –
face can be a night and day difference. Photo: A bowl of floating hellebore
blooms plucked from the array at Spring Fever Nursery – included are Helleborus
orientalis, Helleborus niger and many Hellborus x hyrbidus in single,
semi-double and fully double forms.
In David’s garden, much of which is beneath tall oaks and conifers, many of the
hellebores may hang their faces, but they are not shy. In fact they are growing
and blooming with joyful abandon in nooks and crannies, in part sun and in full
shade, standing tall and apart from other plants and nestled right up against
other woodland plants such as ferns. David has been collecting hellebore’s for
more than a few years – 5? 7? he can’t exactly remember and many of the plants
in his garden are now his own crosses, grown from the self-seeding and
hybridizing that hellebores are notorious for – Shy in stance sometimes, but
promiscuous in behavior, David tells me. Many of David’s original plants came
from Marietta and Ernie O’Byrne hellebore experts in Eugene, Oregon who founded
and own Northwest Garden Nursery.
The hellebore genus is a member of the Ranunculaceae family of plants, and
blooms are generally a rounded cup-shape. The colorful five outer elements of
the flower heads are not actually petals, but sepals and as such they persist
for a long time. These sepals are often what create the drama in a hellebore,
with backsides streaked and veined, or picotee edged a darker color than the
rest of the sepal, and with speckled, freckled and veined front sides. The
sepals can be double, ruffled and range in color from pure white, warm yellow,
pink, burgundy and all the way to an almost inky black. The smaller inner circle
of so-called nectaries (petals capable of holding nectar) can range from almost
invisible single, to semi-double, to double and colored in sharp contrast to the
sepals. The combinations of colors and patterns are seemingly endless and more
hybrids come on the market each year. Easily crossed with one another,
hellebores are one of those plants in a nursery that you should only buy IN
BLOOM, otherwise you can not be sure what the blooms will look like. Specialty
catalogue growers offer cloned plants whose bloom color and form should be
guaranteed.
Photo Caption: A bowl of floating hellebore blooms plucked from the array at
Spring Fever Nursery – included are Helleborus orientalis, Helleborus niger and
many Hellborus x hyrbidus in single, semi-double and fully double forms.
Photo Credit: Jennifer Jewell
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