Friday, March 23, 2007
Perhaps I Was Too Harsh
I recently disparaged Helleborus niger a bit by saying that its foliage takes a beating in some of our winters (this spring, with the heavy snow cover, it looked like a large dog had sat on it); the foliage makes a rather poor background for the flowers, but to my mind, the flowers look odd if you cut all the foliage off. I will say, if you give the plant and its flowers a few days in the sun, everything looks better, with the initially white flowers on this plant turning sugar pink (it's one of the Sunset strains of niger)... I may have been too hasty in judgement. However, the Helleborus orientalis types are already starting to open up (two are shown below), in a multitude of colors and patterns, and overall they are better plants here; with the orientalis hellebores, you can cut off all the old foliage, as the new foliage comes out with the flowers.
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I don't think that you're too harsh. In fact, I firmly believe that some plants don't shape up until they know (somehow, don't ask me how) that you're thinking about eliminating them from the garden! :)
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