Carolyn’s Shade Gardens is a retail nursery located in Bryn Mawr, PA, specializing in showy, colorful, and unusual plants for shade. The only plants that we ship are snowdrops and miniature hostas. For catalogues and announcements of events, please send your full name, location, and phone number (for back up use only) to carolyn@carolynsshadegardens.com. Click here to get to the home page of our website for catalogues and information about our nursery and to subscribe to our blog.
My friend David Culp had this lovely bowl of hellebore flowers on his porch when I visited his garden Brandywine Cottage recently. This is an elegant way to display your hellebores and gives a feeling for the range of colors and forms available. For more gorgeous photos of David’s garden, check out his book The Layered Garden.
It is the middle of the month and time to participate in Garden Blogger’s Bloom Day (GBBD) hosted by May Dreams Gardens (link available on the 15th of the month) where gardeners from all over the world publish photos each month of what’s blooming in their gardens. I participate because it is fun and educational for me to identify what plants make my gardens shine at different times of the year. I am calling this post Hellebores on Parade Again because for GBBD in January 2012 I also put my hellebores on parade (click here to read it).
This month I am using this opportunity to profile the hellebores that will be available at my upcoming Hellebore Extravaganza Sale at my nursery on Saturday, March 23, from 10 am to 3 pm. All photos are of hellebores blooming in my garden right now.
My garden is located in Bryn Mawr (outside Philadelphia), Pennsylvania, U.S., in zone 6B.
‘Pink Frost’ is my favorite of the Christmas rose crosses. Its blue leaves set off the bright pink flowers beautifully, and the flowers fade to a gorgeous rose-red for an extremely long season of interest.
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‘Pink Frost’ also works quite well in a container where its beauty can be examined up close (Culp garden).
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‘There is nothing like the pure white, outward-facing flowers of Christmas rose, Helleborus niger, to stop you in your tracks. A mature clump can have dozens of flowers.
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The double Christmas rose ‘Double Fantasy’ is quite striking.
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Hellebore ‘Mary Lou’ has huge flowers and a wide pink border surrounding a bold maroon spotted “face”.
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The late afternoon sun shines through the early-blooming, yellow hellebore ‘Warbler’, whose flowers continue to be very ornamental even when they have technically “gone by”. As you can see though, new buds are on the way.
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Here is a close up of ‘Warbler’ that I have posted before.
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The double pink hellebore ‘Phoebe’ is just coming into bloom in my garden.
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A close up of ‘Phoebe’.
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‘Painted Bunting’ is the first hybrid hellebore to bloom in my garden and isn’t fazed by all the cold weather we have been having.
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‘Painted Bunting’s’ picotee markings with the maroon center flaring out to outline the pure white petals makes it very special.
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‘Elegance White’ is another lovely double hellebore.
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The species hellebore H. purpurascens has a very unique slate purple color not found in any other hellebore.
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A close up of Helleborus purpurascens.
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Fragrant hellebore, H. odorus, adds a bright note to the winter garden and looks gorgeous paired with red hellebores like ‘Red Lady’.
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A close up of fragrant hellebore.
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‘Red Lady’ hellebore
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Another early-blooming Christmas rose cross, ‘Cinnamon Snow’.
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A close up of ‘Cinnamon Snow’.
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This black hybrid hellebore grabs the attention of every garden visitor I have.
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The double hellebore ‘First Cuckoo’ is new to me this year.
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This very unusual flower belongs to the first ever cross between bearsfoot hellebore, H. foetidus, and Christmas rose, H. niger, called H. x sahinii ‘Winter Bells’. It is new for me this year but looks quite promising for flowers and foliage interest.
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Two more hellebore container ideas from David Culp:
Double black hellebores paired with their favorite companion, snowdrops.
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An enchanting combination of cream-colored hellebores and pussy willows, a shrub I may offer in my upcoming woody plant offer.
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Enjoy, Carolyn
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Carolyn’s Shade Gardens is a retail nursery located in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, US, zone 6b. The only plants that we mail order are snowdrops and miniature hostas and only within the US.
If you are within visiting distance and would like to receive catalogues and information about customer events, please send your full name and phone number to carolynsshadegardens@verizon.net. Subscribing to my blog does not sign you up to receive this information.
Nursery Happenings: The nursery is open and fully stocked. If you can’t come to an event, just email to schedule an appointment–we are available this weekend. My Hellebore Extravaganza open house sale is Saturday, March 23, from 10 am to 3 pm. If you are a customer, expect an email shortly with all the details. There are still a few spaces left in the hellebore seminar on Monday, March 18, at 10 am. For details click here. The 2013 Snowdrop Catalogue is on the sidebar of the website and orders are being accepted now. To view the catalogue, click here. The 2013 General Catalogue is available here.
Facebook: Carolyn’s Shade Gardens has a Facebook Page where I post single photos, garden tips, and other information that doesn’t fit into a blog post. You can look at my Facebook page here or click the Like button on my right sidebar here.
Notes: Every word that appears in orange on my blog is a link that you can click for more information. If you want to return to my blog’s homepage to access the sidebar information (catalogues, previous articles, etc.) or to subscribe to my blog, just click here.
CAROLYN'S SHADE GARDENS 