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What the Hellebore?
I do love the plant genus Helleborus. Known as the Lenten Rose, it’s certainly living up to its name in 2023, after a few years of not doing very much. (To be fair, when it comes to my garden, I wasn’t doing very much during those few years either, so not entirely the plants’ fault.)
The “rose” business is somewhat misleading, as they’re not roses at all, but are members of the plant family Ranunculaceae, whose best-known member is the humble buttercup, and which also includes–among others–anemones, columbines, monkshood, and larkspurs. Although they’re often called evergreen, my hellebores die down in the Fall, and then grow back over the Winter into early Spring, when they start to flower. (I’ve had them flowering at Christmas–they’re sometimes also called the Christmas Rose–but not for several years.)
It’s believed that their name comes from the Greek, from two words meaning (together) “food which injures.” They’re poisonous, emitting a substance similar to toad toxin. I’ve never felt the urge to ingest them myself or to use them as a food additive when I cook for others, and I have to say that a significant population of cats, dogs, sheep, rabbits, and goats who’ve been around them for years don’t seem inclined to test the theory either. My hellebores are all over the place. In addition, I have a small, fenced, garden of really poisonous (but lovely) plants, including foxglove (digitalis) and monkshood (aconite).
Hellebores, though, are one of the species of plants much prized around here as “deer-resistant.” Their large leaves are leathery and a bit rough, and it seems that they’re unpalatable-for that reason alone-to the herds of white-tailed deer who roam the countryside munching on almost everything in sight.
So far, so good with the hellebores. The deer (and the moles, and the voles, and the mice, and all the afore-mentioned other critters) leave them firmly alone.
Legend has it (of course it does) that a good dose of hellebore toxin ended the life of Alexander the Great, and that in 585 BC, during the First Sacred War, the Greek army dumped large amounts of macerated hellebore leaves into the water supply for the city of Kirrha, resulting in thousands of deaths and victory for the Greeks.
I don’t really have it in for anybody, so I won’t be brewing up a batch anytime soon, although should I ever be inclined to, I might look to that clip of Lucy and Ethel stomping on the grapes for inspiration.
After all, I have exactly the right sort of tub out in the field:
But when it comes to hellebores, I grow them just because I think they’re pretty. And they show up at a time when there’s not all that much else going on in the garden.
Happy spring gardening, everyone!
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My wife just planted four of them in the front a few weeks ago. We couldn’t figure out why one of them was sprawled and flattened every morning until the other day. It was late and the dog was furious at something outside. I went to check it out and right in the center of the plant was one of our larger neighborhood cats. It didn’t care that I was approaching or that a ninety-five pound shepherd mix was giving his loudest and most indignant. It just sat there. Actually sat. No lying down. I guess it likes that one plant and made it a stop on the evening’s patrol. Nothing’s eating the hellebores though, and the non-sat on ones look great.
Just gorgeous, She. Thanks for sharing some beauty tonight.
One of the greatest joys of my life was taking my toddler granddaughter out into the fields and doing the British buttercup test:
Pluck a buttercup from the field, and hold it under the subject’s chin. If there’s a bright yellow reflection, then that means the person (usually a child) loves butter!
Regardless of what the killjoys at Cambridge University have to say (which is that “the petals of the buttercup flower (Ranunculus repens) have a carotenoid pigment which absorbs light in the blue and green region of the optical spectrum. The result is that the other colours — in this case, mostly yellow — are reflected back”), I still think it’s magic!
I too love Hellebores – for all the same reasons. If these are current pictures (which are just lovely) I’m very jealous as mine are all under snow. Mud season hasn’t even started, although we have wonderful afternoon light again and I told everyone I saw today that it’s almost April. Our garden has taken a real beating this winter so there will be plenty of Spring gardening opportunities.
Killing the joy of the killjoys, the light that an object reflects determines the color of the object, for all colors, for all objects.
(In the Midwest, since buttercups weren’t everywhere we used dandelions.)
They are current photos (taken yesterday, March 17, 2023). It’s been a strange winter. A very lot of rain. Not much snow. Temps veering wildly from day to day–70, then the next day in the 30s, and vice versa. The leaves of the crocus, daffodils, hyacinths and tulips all sprung at once (unusual). The crocus started to flower about three weeks ago, followed by the daffs and–last week–the hyacinths. No word on the tulips just yet. The only outliers were the snowdrops and the winter aconite (not the same as the poisonous monkshood). They emerged early and as expected.
I am also hoping for a good gardening Spring. More than anything, though, I’d appreciate some consistency in temperature and outlook–hopefully in an upward and pleasant direction.
Another favorite of mine, and also a harbinger of Spring. I give them far more leeway than I should.
https://ricochet.com/750416/group-writing-the-harbinger/
I think hellebores are beautiful and would love to have them. However, despite the info online that they can be grown in Zone 9, I am doubtful. They need “shade in the summer and sun in the winter.” Palms don’t lose their fronds in the fall. So if hellebores need sun in the winter, they’re gonna get sun in the summer, too.
When I was a child, we did this with dandelions.
Oh, you lucky ones, who live in the south. I was at my MIL’s yesterday in Whitehall (I’m sure you know the area), and her Lenten Rose was blooming, but her daffodils are just in bud now. Perhaps they’ll open next week.