Some flowers from this season

[gabycher]

Hello All,

I haven't posted in such a long time. In fact it was Jeff kindly sending me a note about my absence from the forum, and so I thought I would not only give him an update on my hellebores, but all of you.
I have to admit that ever since our horse Cooper joined our family four years ago, my time for gardening has steadily decreased. But he is such a wonderful and fun boy and we love him so much!

It seems that the number of posts here on the forum have been going down quite a bit and so many of you will probably only find my post in early winter, when you will check for the first posts for the new season.
I was very happy to see the post from Bruce! So nice to see you back Bruce! The seeds you sent me in 2010 have resulted in such a nice collection of species plants and hybrids (the best of which I have posted over the last few years).
There were still some first time bloomers of these plants this year and the only ones that haven't bloomed yet are the H. atrorubens plants. They seem to take a really long time.

Here are a few blooms from my potted plants that bloomed in the garage this winter (my apologies,- the pictures are taken in my kitchen and not good quality).
This one is kind of reverse picotee and should have been an anemone, as it is a cross of a pink double with a primrose single, but I didn't get any anemones from this cross, so maybe my double is just a semi-double.


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Another cross with this single primrose and a double white (which I guess is only semi-double, as I didn't get any anemones from this cross either) resulted in quite an oddity,- a twin flower with a third one growing out on top of it:

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This one is a cross of my best white with my neon-like Ashwood plant, which almost always passes on at least some of its veining.

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Out of Bruce's seedlings this one 'Dark Side : Black 1' is probably my darkest plant yet, though as it happens to be with dark ones, very hard to capture on camera:

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This plant of 'Heronswood torquatus #2' has really nice dark foliage in spring. This is a seedling from selfing a H. torquatus plant Bruce got from Heronswood. I think that it is not certain that it is really species, but the plants are definitely beautiful:

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Here are three seedlings from 'Tm 03030 H. torquatus', each of them looking a bit differently:

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Likewise, the seedlings from 'Heronswood torquatus #1' come in a range:

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Needless to say that this last one is my very favorite! Its veins and picotee rim were actually quite a bit prominent in previous years, but veining as well as overall coloring really changes with the weather patterns of every particular spring, as you all know.

And finally here are two overview pictures of my newest and sunniest hellebore bed just after blooming started:

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I wish you all a great rest of the summer and an exciting new hellebore season coming up.
Gaby

[MissAlice]

Great to see you post again Gabycher! Beautiful pictures! Your hellebores are outstanding!

[Roelie]

glad to see your post and thanks for the pictures. The dark foliage is very nice. Last time more members seem to get back and that makes me very happy for gardenbuddies makes a part of my live. Every morning I have a look on it after breakfast

[Jeff]

Great torquatus plants shows the variety of patterning that does exist in some wild populations, also like the plant with dark flower bract coloration. Only have one of these a dark double even the lower stalk is intensely dark.
Welcome back

[bruce03451]

hello gaby! the pictured hellebore above in your post are all hybribs.
The heronswood has strong dark torq genes but these species torq that look like torq from heronswood are not species but hybribs. The heronswood dark H x torq pruduce nice seedlings.
TM03030 is interesting to work with, the children of TM03030 when used as a pod parent and HXH as a pollin source produce lovely flowers on low growing small plants with small round flowers. when TM03030 pollin is used on HXH it will have more of the HXH size and flower charector.
as far as the variety that exist of torq populations it is astonishing.
with the amount of diversity this hellebore species shows it certainly brings up the question of clasification.

Gaby I like these veined little things, I wonder if they are a dead end? wonder what would result in pushing pollin between them (2cnd generation inbred hybribe). I think the lack of threads is from the new wave of facebook. in my case it is not the lack enthusasim (or horsing around!) but I have not been able to garden because of an illness.

gaby, is garage grown hellebore a new trend in Canada? you trend setter you!
bruce

[gabycher]

Hello Bruce! How nice to see you back,- I haven't been on the forum for such a long time myself (yes,- 'horsing' around is a big part of the reason,- our winters are not only tough on us and our plants, but also on horses) and I am sorry to hear about your health problems. Hopefully 2017 will be a better year for you!
Thank you very much for the explanations and you insight about TM03030 and Heronswood torquatus hybrids!
I definitely love the small plant size of TM03030,- they are almost like miniature hellebores.
I would really like to cross my two plants with the strongest veins,- the best plant of TM 03030 and the best one of 'Heronswood torq. 1'. I would also like to self either of them, but the problem is that they are flowering so early. They are in bloom right now, but our daytime temperatures are around 10C and our night time temperatures are just above freezing, and the pollen just doesn't fluff up. I know I could try to cut a flower (this year I have more of them) and probably get usable pollen inside, but I still doubt that pollination would be successful at these temperatures. We will have a very warm day tomorrow,- apparently 25C,- but only for a day and I would of course only come home in the evening.
Last year I tried to self the veined TM 03030 plant, but as expected it was too cold and I didn't get any seeds.
The TM 03030 that only had a picotee edge last year (third picture of the TM 03030s above) has some veining too this year.

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In my experience the intensity of the veining in all my veined plants varies a bit every year and I think it depends on the weather situation.
I will continue going through the threads, commenting and posting over the next little while! :)

[Roelie]

thanks for your picture

[bruce03451]

those are great hellebore. I think the slow hellebore species take a very long time to mature. They change with age.