Thursday, April 05, 2007

Miscellaneous Spring Garden Stuff, continued

Helleborus orientalis or probably a hybrid thereof, the Lenten Rose. Once again, a plant located near the foundation of the basement fireroom, although a couple of feet out. Just buds showing so far, although plants of this species elsewhere on the property are barely showing their tips. Lenten Rose and its hybrids are the more commonly grown Hellebores, at least in this country. Their flowers range in colour from whites to greens, from all shades of pink to red, deep purple (almost black), blue shades apparently, and may often have spots.


An excellent surprise still, the third year running: foliage buds of the Blue Himalayan Poppy, Mecanopsis betonicifolia or M. grandis or a hybrid of those. Plants which flowerd last year are not showing, they grow "pups" or sidebuds and then frequently die but the youngsters take over the show. No sign of self-seeding yet.


A peony root searching for "more cold please". Not all of them do this, sometimes it's just how the mulch breaks down or the frost heaves or erosion occurs. I'll probably cover this a bit later in the spring. This is Paeonia kesrouanensis. I know this because there is a label on a stick just beside it-- not from looking at the buds!



Arum italicum pictum, Italian Arum. Non-flowering-size plants. I didn't realize they showed up so early! A bit of frostbite on one of the painted leafs. The pictum form is supposed to have the white-patterned leaf, but these are grown from seed and I'm not sure whether to expect all of them to develop a pattern as they mature.

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