Burgundy Hellebores

These burgundy hybrid hellebores popped up and started blooming almost overnight.

Burgundy Hellebores

How appropriate to be featuring this lovely perennial on this last day of winter. Burgundy hybrid hellebores, also referred to as Lenten roses because they tend to bloom around Lent, are one of the last winter-blooming flowers. These literally just popped up in my garden this past week.

The actual flower is inside the burgundy-colored sepals surrounding the center.

The flowers of hybrid hellebores are actually the long, slender yellow filament-looking segments inside the burgundy-colored sepals. As the sepals mature, they loose some of their color but not their shape. This year I am going to try to save the sepals at the end of the season and see if I can dry them for my wreaths.

The one challenge in enjoying these lovely plants is that the flowers on the plants actually droop. To be able to see, and photograph, the flowers, I have to lean over and try to catch the flowers from a less than comfortable angle.

This is how the hybrid hellebores appear in the flower bed, with the sepals hanging down.

Even without being able to see the droopy flowers I can spot the plant in the flower bed when it is in bloom. Sometimes it's the only green showing up in the whole area!

Sometimes its easy to overlook hybrid hellebores in a garden bed.

Farewell winter, it was a long, snowy one!

Charlotte

Yellow Lenten Roses

Isn't this stunning? If it just wasn't so hard to take a picture of it!

Yellow Hellebores or Lenten Roses

They're finally blooming, my little collection of hybrid hellebores purchased at the end of spring the last few years. Some were without tags but I recognized the plant by their large, speckled leaves.

I found some hellebores last week at our local garden center for $20 and was in a bit of shock, forgetting for a moment that I picked up mine on sale. The garden center manager reminded me they have always been on the pricier side and come in a wide range of colors and shapes.

Hybrid hellebores get their common name from the rose-like flowers that appear in early spring around the Christian Lent observance. The "Lenten Rose" blooms are similar to poinsettias in that the colored sepals protect the true flowers inside. The wonderful advantage of adding these perennials to any garden is that the "blooms" last for several months and the foliage stays green for most of the year.

My hybrid hellebores are in partial shade in rich, moist and well-drained soil. The biggest challenge enjoying the flowers is trying to see, and photograph, the downward-facing blooms so I have them planting along the gentle curve of my hillside. It does make it a little easier for photography but I can't say it helps very much in terms of seeing the flowers, I still have to get down to eye level without exposing myself to my neighbors.

I add mulch every year to their flower beds and noticed that their crowns are now buried. I may have to lift them later, or move the mulch out from around them so the crown is back to soil level.

In year's past, these have started to bloom late January to February, this is the latest that they have started. I tried out my thread snips to cut back the old greenery during a warm January day when I was looking for some sign of life. I will be adding compost to this area this year to make sure the plants have enough nourishment while they are blooming.

Here are my yellow hybrid hellebores all blooming in a bunch on my hillside.

If you have a chance to pick up any hellebores on sale, jump on the chance. Regardless of the variety and color they may be, hellebores are a wonderful addition to a late winter, early spring garden.

Charlotte

Recycle Cut Christmas Trees

Some of the cut Christmas trees left at Rolla Recycling Center to become mulch.

Recycle Cut Christmas Trees

Some friends are finally taking down their fresh cut Christmas trees and tossing them into garbage piles. That's a shame because these trees can easily be recycled and keep contributing in a variety of ways through the rest of winter.

The following are seven ways cut Christmas trees can be used now that all ornaments, lights, tinsel and cats have been removed:

1. Cut branches off and pile them into a small teepee shape at the corner of your property for wildlife refugees. I keep several piles around my one-acre hillside and keep them "refreshed" with twigs and other cover through the seasons so wildlife have a protected hiding space. In spring, it's fun to see what comes out of those refuges. Last spring, I saw a number of rabbits making the wildlife piles home.

2. Cut Christmas trees also make good bird cover under bird feeders. If you don't like having a whole tree at a bird feeder, cut off branches and use the branches to provide a green safe space at the foot of a bird feeder. 

3. Better yet, use the cut Christmas tree as a bird feeder. Place the tree up against a post or tie it to another tree and add orange slices, strung popcorn, old cranberries and even a bird feeder to give birds a safe place to eat. One of the most beautiful garden sights in snow is to see red cardinal birds in the evergreen branches of a cut Christmas tree!

4. Striped Christmas tree trunks can be set aside to weather and then used as fence posts and bird feeder poles.

Chipped trees and donated branches become a gardener's dream, a pile of potential mulch!

5. Donate your cut Christmas tree to your local recycling center. The Rolla Recycling Center collects trees and chips them up into huge mulch piles that sit through the rest of winter waiting for spring. When weather warms up, residents can stop by on Wednesdays to have the loader fill their pick-ups and trailers with the chipped wood for garden mulch.

The mulch is also available the rest of the week but you have to shovel your own so Wednesdays become a popular day to visit the recycling center.

6. Tie a weight on the cut Christmas tree and sink it in your ponds for fish cover. Evergreen trees make good cover for baby fish as well as providing safe hiding spaces for larger fish trying to get away from predators.

7. Two years ago, a local garden center was giving away their cut Christmas trees so I picked several up and used them for a wind break around my honeybee hives.

Cut Christmas trees also make good wind breaks around honeybee hives facing the south.

In the photo I have the trees pulled away from hive entrances so the honeybees can easily take their winter cleansing flights. As soon as the temperatures dropped to make them cluster back inside the hives, I moved the cut Christmas trees back in front of the hives for a wind break.

Here's a closer look of one of my hives with bees taking cleansing flights.

It takes a while for evergreen trees to dry out, even if they aren't placed in water so you have about half a year of good use before the branches become brittle.

Charlotte

How to Make Amaryllis Bulb Gifts

How to Make Amaryllis Bulb Gifts

No surprise, I suppose, but I like to give plants as gifts, especially a plant that promises beauty in the dead of winter. One of my favorite plants to give as gifts is amaryllis. These native South American bulbs are easy to find at garden centers, especially in winter.

A number of friends have told me they pass them up because they think they are hard to grow. Far from it. Once potted, amaryllis require a little water only when soil goes dry and maybe a stick to hold up the stem once the bud shows up. The flowers are stunning and last 1-2 weeks depending on room temperature.

Part of the fun is watching them grow, the stems can grow an inch or two daily.

To prepare them for gifts, open the amaryllis box to see how far along the bulb is growing. You want a bulb with only the bud tip showing.

If you are gifting this to someone who doesn't think they can grow anything, find a bud that's already growing a few inches. A day or two in a sunny window will turn the blond plant green and it will bloom quickly. 

It still amazes me these flowers will start without even being in soil. They store their energy in the bulb so it doesn't take much to get them started:

Amaryllis bulb getting a start on sprouting still in the gift box.

Look for the bud starts, those will turn into flowers. This bulb doesn't have a bud so it will grow leaves to collect energy in the bulb for the next blooming cycle.

To easily turn them into gifts, write up instructions on how to care for the bulbs. I copied my own published gardening article on amaryllis care and added them to the boxed bulbs:

my gardening to distraction article on how to care for amaryllis bulbs explains how to care for these south american flowers.

No need to be fancy with packaging, just add a ribbon to tie the printed detailed instructions to the bulb boxes.

Once gift-wrapped, store them in a cooler spot away from sun so the bulbs aren't tempted to grow before you give them. These are tropical plants so they don't like temperatures below 60F.

Add a little gift card wishing the recipient well and there you have it, a fun and unusual growing gift for all sorts of occasions!

Boxed amaryllis bulbs with Gardening to Distraction article copies ready for gift-giving.

And guess who is happy to keep the left-overs....

Charlotte

The Poinsettia Legend

Poinsettias themselves are a special holiday gift from Mexico. Legend has it that once there were two very poor Mexican children. They looked forward to the Christmas Festival, where a large manger scene was set up every year in front of the village church. One Christmas Eve, the children set out to attend church services. On their way, they picked weeds growing along the road and decided to take them as their gift to the Baby Jesus at the manger.  The other children teased them for not bringing expensive gifts but they knew they had given what they could give. As they placed the weeds around the manger, the green top leaves turned into bright red petals. Soon the manger was surrounded by beautiful, star-like flowers named after the first US Ambassador to Mexico, Joel Roberts Poinsett. Everybody at the manger said that a gift of love is dearer to Jesus than the most expensive presents money can buy.  Ever since then, Poinsettia have been favorite Christmas decorations.

Wishing you and yours a warm Christmas filled with the gift of love.

Charlotte