Skip to main content...

Eggleston Hall Gardens

Eggleston Hall Gardens Journal

One in a 234....A lovely double yellow Hellebore

13th March, 2013

Very occasionally nurserymen get lucky.....we sow a few hundred seeds, prick-out a hundred or two seedlings, then await the results. It can take several years for some plants to reach flowering potential only for it to be discovered they are all quite ordinary or inferior.

Not so in the case of these Helleborus; I had been nursing a few yellow forms for about a decade and almost given up, having planted them all beneath an old apple tree, however 2009 seemed to have been a mast year for Hellebors as they self seeded all around the base of the tree.

That July I collected the seedlings and lined out 234 into trays. In the spring of 2010 I potted the surviving 180 seedlings into 7cm pots and placed them out of the way behind a shed and duly forgot about them.......The dire winter of that year eventually gave way to spring and I noticed them when losing some other plants I was uncertain of a purpose for. Nurserymen have a tendency to shove stuff out of sight in the hope something magic happens. But 126 little pots got through so I immediately moved them up into 1litre pots, repotting again last year into 3litre pots.

125 have now flowered in a beautiful arrangement of single long lasting yellow blooms, flushed, speckled, or lined with red. All would be delightful in a garden but nothing to change ones undergarments over.....all except 1.

I have called it “Helleborus hybridus 126” and it’s a lovely double yellow. It appears an exceptional plant of robust vigour with flowers that proudly look up at you. I have a feeling 126 it is going to be something of a show off plant, so now its just a case of bulking up the stock I guess.....

....maybe finding another name also.