floating hellebores – Shropshire flowers

Hello, thank you for checking back for my 3rd blog post! I love February, the sunrises and sunsets have been spectacular and you don’t have to be up at the crack of dawn to see them either which is rather lovely. We have also had some milder weather here the past week, it’s tempting to go in all guns blazing with the seed sowing when the weathers nice but it’s still early so I have just made a little start and I’ll keep inside on the windowsill until they’ve germinated and then kick them out into the green house in a few weeks time. My first batch of Cerinthe, Celosia, Helichrysum and Limonium.

We have been adding to our stock of hellebores so that we can build a good supply of hellebores for years to come. I’ve underplanted the roses with them this week it seemed like a good use of space that while the roses are bare there will be something in their place. I purchased a good haul of them from Twelve Nuns nurseries who do online orders and I was really impressed with them. They looked great quality and came perfectly packed with no plastic packaging either. What a joy! They do take a little while to get established and I chose to go for smaller 9cm pot plants in the end because I’m in no rush and the price difference was significant compared to the larger plants elsewhere, so it’s worth while checking them out if you want to get some winter colour into the garden and if your not in a rush either it may be a good option for you too! To plant them, I dug in plenty of good quality well rotted horse manure compost into the hole and sprinkled some mycorrhizal fungi onto the roots which helps get the root system established quicker. Don’t forget to give them a good water in too.

Hellebores from Twelve Nuns Nurseries and Mycorrhizal Fungi.

We thought it would be a lovely idea to be able to offer ‘Floating Hellebores’ next year in February and April! And hopefully some small bunches of hellebores too. They will mark the start of the cut flower season for us here on Clee Hill. Simon has been busy in the Hot glass workshop producing samples for a range of hand blown Hellebore bowls. Inspired by the colour palette of hellebores at Ashwood nurseries that we saw last week. We have chosen 3 shades which we think are most beautiful and we hope you love them too!

floating hellebore hand blown glass bowls.

We are launching this product by doing a giveaway on our Instagram page. 🥳 Please do check out the Instagram page and be in with a chance of winning one of our handmade Hellebore bowls and a bunch of hellebores to float in it!

The other star of the show at the moment has to be the snow drops doesn’t it !? We don’t have many of them here in our garden, they don’t make good cut flowers but it’s always nice to venture out and see them en masse as they herald in the spring! They only last a few fleeting weeks but they are worth stopping to enjoy. If you don’t live too far from Ludlow then you should certainly plan a visit to St Peter’s at Stanton Lacy, don’t forget to take your flask. The whole church yard is carpeted in snowdrops for the first couple of weeks of February it’s truly something special to see!

Thank you for reading my 3rd blog post. Please, as ever do drop me any comments with your thoughts and ideas of what you’d like me to share here. Check out the give away on Instagram and enjoy the week ahead! With Love Rebecca

Floating Hellebores at Ashwood Nurseries. 4th January 2023.

Last week we took a trip out to a specialist nursery called Ashwood Nurseries, it’s in between Kidderminster and Wolverhampton in the Midlands and lucky for us is pretty local!

We had booked onto one of their Hellebore tours and had a wonderful talk from Steve whose knowledge about these beautiful winter gems was just wonderful! Thanks Steve! We added a few new varieties to our collection, green and deep purple ones almost black, a beautiful yellow double and very elegant white which was very exciting!

Our selection of Hellebores that came home with us.

What a fascinating plant! Originating in the Eastern Alps, Switzerland, Germany and Italy, they are also known as the Christmas rose or Lenten rose, although they flower a little later than Christmas and they are not related to the rose but are actually in the Ranunculus family! (buttercup)

February to April is the best time to see Hellebores in all their glory! On our tour we got to see inside theHellebore growing tunnels which was honesty like stepping into a sweet shop. Hellebores don’t smell but they certainly make up for it in colour! And their colour palette is unlike that of any other plant! I think using them for inspiration for interiors would make for a very tranquil yet jolly room! They come in Pastels but are made rich with deep velvety pinks and blacks sometimes framing the pastels round the edges of the sepals (the correct name for the petals on a hellebore) or veining through them, as in the sweetly named ‘Picotee’ varieties! The photo at the top of this post is a really good overview of the colours available at Ashwood that we saw on our visit and you can see some of those lovely Picotee ones in the mix too!

We were amazed with the careful and dedicated organisation of the breeding programme at Ashwood nurseries. Steve talked about how they have transitioned from dividing and selling by division to growing from seeds. So the tunnels had busy staff on a mission to make new hellebore varieties by looking for closely packed stamens within the centres of the flowers to be sure that the bees hadn’t got to them first! Bee’s LOVE hellebores, as there isn’t so much nectar available to them at this time of year so they make a great source of food! Steve explained you have to be quicker than the bees to select the parent plants! Hellebores at Ashwood Nurseries go through a 3 year cycle from seed pollination before they are ready to sell, as it’s only by this point they can be sure that it’s a good hellebore and that the true flowers are produced.

If you have a hellebore plant or two then you can make yourself a floating hellebore arrangement like in the picture to enjoy for weeks in your home, they last so well! They even work as an arrangement in the garden where they blow across the surface of the water as they are caught on the breeze. It couldn’t be simpler or more beautiful – Cut an inch or two below the flower head and simply float them in your favourite bowl filled with clean water. Experiment and see what bowl works best, ceramic, glass, patterned or plain will all have have different results. I’d love to see what you create! And I’ll share some in next weeks blog post too!

Aren’t Hellebores just such a wonderful way of kicking off the cut flower season?! And how wonderful as a valentines gift would something like the arrangement in the picture be?!? Stay tuned folks we have an idea brewing to share with you in next weeks post!

To me, they do look like rather magical and mysterious plants, not only their colours but the way they emerge from the soil in the coldest darkest days of the year like strange creatures, you can often already see the flower bud as it emerges from the ground as though the flower is coming straight from the dirt. And then, as they develop, their heads are held on almost elasticated looking pedicel (the top part of the stem which holds the flower), and last for weeks and weeks and weeks bending down with each frost and springing back into action as they thaw out as if revitalised and new. Almost how I imagine those brave souls who cold water swim feel after stepping out from their morning ritual. We have found the very best way to appreciate the Hellebore is to put them in pots by our door or you could place them by a window you look out of often, they are a sure way to tell how cold is it out too!

After a bit of research, unsurprisingly it seems there are a great deal of myths, folklore and magical stories related to them, such as river poisoning stories, healing and purging of animals and humans, treatments for nervousness and mental illnesses, the making of ‘black dust’ a deadly sneezing powder made from the roots it’s even been said that powdered hellebore flowers could be thrown up into the air to give the power of invisibility to the person they land on! Anyway I’ll leave you to find out more before I fall down that rabbit hole! If you read this far then thank you! I hope my writing will get better by bringing you new and exciting posts on a weekly basis and I hope to bring you some ideas and ways to enjoy flowers each week. Please do drop me any comments with ideas and suggestions and don’t forget to share your floating hellebore pictures if you give it a go!

I’m going to be announcing my first give away next week, so please check back next Tuesday for that!

With Love, Rebecca

Tag: floating hellebores

Valentines Giveaway and Stanton Lacy Snowdrops.

Floating Hellebores, Deadly Sneezing Powder, Picotee Pastels and Valentines Giveaway!