Plants | Deborah Silver & Co.

Hellebores: Recent Forms

I have only been growing helleborus orientalis in my garden for 10 years or so. Why I was so late adding them to me garden is a mystery. Perhaps they were done blooming by the time I started haunting nurseries for plants. I may have missed them. Perhaps the time it took a hellebore to grow into a decent sized blooming plant was too long to make commercial production widespread. Whatever the reason, I am a fan now. They are sturdy plants with thick leather like foliage. Many of them are hardy in zone 4, which means very hardy. They thrive in light to medium shade, and like alkaline soil-perfect for my yard. In a mild winter, the foliage is evergreen. The color of the petals eventually fade, but they hold onto the stalk for a long time after the flower is spent. In June my plants will look like they are covered with green flowers. My plants are a strain grown from seed called Royal Heritage mix. This mix has been around for a fairly long time, and produces somewhat muted flowers from dark purple to pink, white and green.
Hellebores increase in size slowly, so the prices for good size plants can be considerable. The flowers emerge on leafless stalks in early spring-late March or early April in my yard. The new season’s leaves come from the ground after the flowering cycle is over. They are long lived, and make dense clumps some 18 inches tall or so. They are willing seeders, should you have the mind to grow them on. The species helleborus orientalis features nodding flowers, meaning they face down. You would have to get down on the ground to look up into their faces, or cut the flowers and float them in a bowl.

One can now find varieties with yellow flowers-shocking, this development. The first yellow hellebore I ever saw in person-I could not take my eyes off of it. This development was only the beginning. Breeders in Japan, England, Canada and the US (and no doubt in many other countries) are breeding plants with double flowers. Spots. picotee forms. unusual colors. Helleborus Black Oddyssey is just that-an inky black. Helleborus Ivory Price is a strong grower, and features flowers that face up. Michigan hybridizer Chris Hansen is responsible for breeding a breathtakingly beautiful group of hellebores known as “Winter Thrillers”. Improved flower color, flower size, plant vigor, and foliage are the trademark of these plants. He has been breeding hellebores for over 15 years; his newer introductions are stunning. There is a wealth of information about hellebores on line now. If you are interested, make a cup of coffee, and explore.

I have never been so much a fan of double flowers. The singles just appeal to me more. This is a preference that is being challenged by the new varieties of double hellebores. A flower such as this is very hard to pass by. A fan of double bloodroot might well be taken with this hellebore. Many of the newer named hellebores are available via the technology of tissue culture. Helleborus orientalis hybrids of old were all seed strains. No technology existed to exactly reproduce a particular plant. Not that I do not treasure seed strains of hellebores. There is always the chance of once in a lifetime spectacular plant. No one discusses the beauty of seed strains better than Carolyn from Carolyn’s Shade Garden.

A love for seed strains of hellebores implies a gardener that can successfully bring on seedlings or grow successfully from seed (I am thinking Joseph Tychonievich who grows for Arrowhead Alpines in Michigan)-or that gardener who is intrigued by the prospect of a seedling that is yet to flower. Not your thing? Lots of hellebores are available true to name-meaning they are being reproduced by tissue culture. I do have a few plants from my Royal heritage mix that are extraordinary in plant habit and bloom-others are not so swell. This named cultivar, Anna’s Red, is an outstanding plant. It was named after Anna Pavord, UK gardener and writer.

No matter what you might fancy, there is probably a hellebore that will appeal to you. Hellebores, in my opinion, are part of that group of plants that I call fancy plants. Fancy, as in new hybrids of hosta. Fancy, as in unusual. Like the Rembrandt tulips-although their news is now centuries old. Lots of rare and gorgeous plants that gardeners are prone to become besotted over are not such great growers. But I feel convinced that the new hybrids of hellebores are rugged plants. I feel confident in saying any effort you make to grow them will be rewarded.

I have never seen one that did not make my heart pound a little faster. This single flower with an anemone center-wow. Though I have always favored green or white single flowered hellebores, I see no good reason not to change my mind. Interested further? The book “Hellebores – A Comprehensive Guide”, written by C. Colston Burrell and Judith Knott Tyler is a classic. Judith’s nursery, Pine Knott Farms, is a major supplier of fine hellebores. Even a casual internet search will provide lots of information and sources for this stellar spring blooming perennial.

Rob always has a fresh idea for Detroit Garden Works. This winter has been so severe and so long, I doubt anyone will be turning over the dirt much in March. The freezing and snowy landscape notwithstanding, every gardener will be ready to talk plants the first day we hit 40 degrees. He has a plan for a big opportunity for some gardening conversation. In late March, we will have over 600 hellebores available for review and purchase. A helleborus Festivalis.

Every gardener has a big interest in plants. The plants are a bridge where every gardener of every persuasion might meet. That bridge is a place to be. A chance to move from where we are, given a little conversation and exchange, to where or how we might want to be gardening. We hope you are able to join us March 22nd and 23rd at Detroit Garden Works for a little taste of the spring to come.

A double pink hellebore might be just the thing to chase away the late winter blues.

Posted on: March 3, 2014 21 Comments

Filed Under: flowers, Plants, Detroit Garden Works, Picture This Tagged With: spring flowering perennials, helleborus orientalis hybrids, helleborus orientalis

A Belated Valentine

I did have Valentines flowers to arrange and deliver Friday, most of which got away from me before I could photograph them. But the process of arranging gave me some time to think about them-the flowers, that is. In the dead center of February, in the middle of a too cold snowy and icy winter, I had tulips, roses, alstromeria, waxflower, ranunculus, lisianthus, tracelium, white button pomps, black red carnations and godetia in my hands. Just the smell of all of that fresh and living was pretty exciting. Like most gardeners, I am used to the dirt that nature dishes out. But this winter came early, and shows no sign of letting up, months later. I have to admit I am ready for a change of seasons. No wonder Valentine’s Day comes at this time of year.

This winter began for us in November. By Thanksgiving, the ground was well on its way to freezing, and we had snow. We are closing in on three months in which we have had snow entirely covering the ground, and cold that penetrates to the bone in a matter of minutes. Of course I am dreaming in color. And thinking about flowers. Nothing in my environment is green now, much less flowering. The work I am doing now revolves around design. This means black lines on white paper. Ideas. Representations of places. All of this work is abstract. I am not standing on a patch of dirt, with the sky overhead. I am not digging holes. I have not one patch of green, anywhere.

This is as good a time as any to talk about flowers. Did I evolve from a person to a person of gardening inclination from exposure to flowers? It could be. I am not a botanist, but my quick take is that flowers make the process of pollination and seeding a visually sexy affair. Some flowers are irresistible to hummingbirds or bees, or moths. That flowers might be attractive to me is not nature’s intent. Some hybrid flowers are sterile. Though they are beautiful beyond compare, there will be no babies. Just me-I have been reduced to a baby state by the length and ferocious nature of this winter. I understand completely that plants do not flower to make my gardening life more beautiful. But they do. What they do for this garden starved person in February-enormous.

There are many things about gardening that satisfy, beyond the flowers. I am interested in outdoor spaces designed to embrace people. I like grass to lay down on, after a long day. I am awed by trees of age. I am interested in texture, mass, motion, rhythm, line, color, and form-in the landscape. There is a fondness and respect for every green plant. Is one better than another? Not really. I may like peonies better than delphiniums, but that is a matter of taste, not worth.

There are some years when the flowering trees enchant. Last spring was the first spring in two seasons that this magnolia bloomed. The previous year, every bud was frosted off by a long late spring cold snap. I was so ready for those flowers to emerge. Other years, I feel like flowers on trees look silly. How could any tree as sculptural and majestic as a magnolia go the frivolous route of tarting themselves up with big blowsy pink flowers? Are the big glossy leaves and pale gray bark not enough? The magnolia stellata outside my window this morning is making ready for spring. How can I tell? The snow this morning is accumulating on the enlarged buds. The snowbuds tell me March is not so far away.

White flowers are not tough to love. They have a fresh and pristine look so unlike the dirt they came from. The white of this double flowered hellebore is all the more striking, given the pale yellow stamens and green flares. I like single flowered hellebores, but I would grow this double without hesitation. Why? I like flowers. Ugly flowers-could those two words ever be side by side? The flowers of butterburrs, Dutchman’s pipe and American ginger are not exactly what I would call lovely, but they are flowers none the less.

Roses fall in and out of favor so fast a gardener can hardly keep up. They can be easy to dismiss, given their ungainly habit of growth, their affinity for disease and Japanese beetles. Not to mention that they are so, well, girly. This overblown pink Carefree Beauty flower is not to everyone’s taste. I grow this rose in spite of all the work they require because I like the flowers.

There are lots of other roses I cannot grow, that are only available to me as cut flowers, grown by someone else. My Carefree Beauty roses would never be available as a cut flower. They last no longer than a day or two when cut. The history of the romance of the rose aside, a flower which can last for a week or better in water is especially welcome in mid February.

I like cut flowers in season. When the tulips are in bloom, arrangements with cut tulips have that extra from the garden cache. But there are no flowers of any description in season in my February. How great it is to have the opportunity to put vegetables and flowers in a grocery cart in February. Tulips, Dutch iris, delphinium and sweet peas in February? Bring them on. Buck brought me a dozen Confetti roses for Valentines. As much as I love the yellow flowers whose petals are edged in orangy red, I am most fond of how willing they are to open wide and flat – this a memory of the roses in my garden. They look so beautiful this morning.

Of course everyone has their own idea of what tugs at their heart strings, come February 14.

Posted on: February 16, 2014 7 Comments

Filed Under: Plants, flowers, Color

At A Glance: Leaf Deprived

The Michigan landscape has a decidedly arctic look to it right now. I thought these pictures might be a comfort to leaf deprived northern gardeners, myself included. Strobilanthes is commonly known as Persian shield.

asclepias incarnata, orange sedge, and verbena bonariensis

calocasia, coleus, creeping jenny and scotch moss (sagina)

plectranthus, dusty miller, and barbed wire plant

hosta, lime green selaginella, and clear sky primrose pansies

blue green and red-violet- Persian shield, perfume purple nicotiana, red bor kale, senecio “blue chalk”, lavender star verbena, silver falls dichondra, petunia

caladiums

caladiums and polka dot plant

dieffenbachia and company

red bore kale and variegated scented geranium

Can’t wait for the coming of the leaves.

Posted on: February 10, 2014 34 Comments

Filed Under: Winter, Plants Tagged With: foliage, leaves other than green, Leaves

Say It Ain’t Snow

In Detroit, 49.3 inches of snow have fallen so far this winter, more than the full season average of 42.7 inches, and there are at least two months left in winter. Detroit is seeing its snowiest January on record: Detroit has received 31.3 inches so far this month, breaking the old record of 29.6 inches set in January of 1978, according to the weather service’s White Lake Township station. And more snow is on the way. There are those who might think this is a record of dubious merit. But though I am truly tired of the endless snow, I am also much relieved.

The shop is about 30 miles north of downtown Detroit. The USDA plant hardiness map puts us in Zone 6a. This means that plant which are hardy from -10 degrees below zero to -5 degrees below zero should live and prosper here. True plant hardiness is not all that formulaic. There are invariably mitigating circumstances. Some years those circumstances work for me. Other years, marginally hardy plants slip away. Some zone 7 plants will live for me, provided they are planted in very sheltered spots, and have good drainage. But no matter my efforts, the proof is in the winter putting.

I have clients that have old Franklinia trees, 2 story tall American hollies, Brown Bracken magnolias- and other more southerly specific landscape plants that are healthy and robust, in spite of our plant hardiness zone designation. I am sure that proper siting played a big part in their survival. I have another client who lives in Detroit, and with much effort, mulching and wrapping, overwinters certain palms in the ground. Palms-really? Detroit is a big city with lots of buildings. The mass of all of those buildings holds the heat, and the height of the buildings protects plants from wind. Plants are very specific about what they want, and what they will tolerate. The hardiness borders are not fixed.

There is no reason not to push the envelope, if there is a plant you feel you cannot do without. The -10 degrees to -5 degrees is a worst case scenario in zone 6a. So what gardener doesn’t like to plant dangerously? That is part of the fun of having a garden-stretching the limits. But we have had temperatures that are coming close to that worst case scenario, and colder temperatures yet to come. What does this mean for the garden?

First up, I need to refer back to the snow cover, as amply illustrated above. Snow is water that freezes as it falls. As this granular and crystalline form of water piles up, it forms a blanket which, despite its cold composition, has great insulating properties. Think of all of this frozen water, with air trapped in between each crystal. Years ago I was so surprised to learn that spring flowering bulbs never freeze solid. The earth has a latent heat which keeps most bulbs just at or above freezing. Bulbs that I plant in pots for the winter, that freeze solid through and through for lack of sufficient protection, will rot come spring. Insulation is an important part of weathering the winter.

Where am I going with all of this? The insulating role of soil, and in our present case, heavy snow, plays a major role in protecting landscape plants from cold injury. My landscape plants began slowing down in August. In an ideal season, the transition from the growing phase to the sleeping phase is very long, and imperceptibly gradual. Sudden and extreme cold, like what we experienced several springs ago, will catch a plant off guard. A plant which has begun leafing out has had a biological, final, and emphatic call to leaf out. The new shoot that is out there is vulnerable to an abrupt change in conditions. If the environment suddenly goes cold, the new leaves will suffer. If the dramatic cold is cold enough, and long enough, branches of trees can die back. In our cold a few springs ago, many Japanese maples died outright.

Tulips are well prepared for nature’s mood swings. The leaves poke out of the ground-they test the early spring waters. Unforeseen cold weather can disfigure the leaves, but the buds stay tucked away underground until the weather reliably warms. An unexpected freeze when the tulips are in bud-I shower them with water. The water will freeze before the blooms. Gardeners, and spring blooming plants-they are endowed with incredible fortitude. My trees and shrubs have been dormant a long time. The roots of my magnolias are deep in the soil, and mulched with 40 inches of snow. I am thinking – and hoping – that they will survive this brutal cold without incident.

If I have to have the cold, then I want as much snow as possible. Middling cold winters with no snow cover worry me. Though I know the will to live is incredibly strong, will is not everything. Middling cold can damage or kill plants that have no insulation from snow. As utterly bored and irritated as I am by the extreme cold and the relentless snow, I am in the gardening gig for the long run. That would mean a spring in which I see all of my plants leafing out, ready to grow. So bring on that snow.

Underneath our 49 inches, a garden.

Posted on: January 26, 2014 13 Comments

Filed Under: Plants, Winter Tagged With: plant hardiness zones, plant hardiness, winter hardiness

Hellebores: Recent Forms

A Belated Valentine

At A Glance: Leaf Deprived

Say It Ain’t Snow

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