Barry Glick in West Virgina is a big hellebore breeder. Bet he could answer all of your questions.

Page seems to be down at the moment but I'm sure it will right back up. Think they have their own server judging from some of the error messages I get

I realise that I may suffer a huge backlash from my next comments but nevermind I'll say them anyway. Barry Glick may be a big hellebore breeder (by the way, nobody 'breeds' hellebores, they just select constantly for better qualities) but his emphasis is on quantity, not quality. I've seen pictures of many of his so-called stunning hybrids and to be honest, they are mostly mediocre. Don't get me wrong, SOME are good.

There is only one place worth getting hellebore seed from; see my earlier postings.

Suenh, this isn't an attack on you or Barry Glick, It's just that I probably have a better insight on hellebores (for reasons not worth going into here) and of some of the people that call themselves 'experts', that's all. What most of them think they know and what they actually know are very different!!

Tim

Of course people 'breed' hellebores . I suppose you'll be saying next that Blackmore & Langdons do not breed begonia either!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Richard

Richard,
No, I won't be saying that Blackmore and Langdons do not breed begonias as I know nothing about begonias and nor do I want to. The subject matter is Hellebores, a plant that I DO know something about and anyway, begonias cannot be compared to hellebores in any sensible conversation.

I suggest you buy yourself a copy of Will McLewin's Hellebore Notes. Perhaps then you will understand what I mean when I say that growers do not 'breed' hellebores.

Do you really think that dark nectaries are bred for? Of course they aren't!! This feature crops up occasionally as an oddity. Ok, so then the growers try to incorporate this feature into other hellebores but this is hardly breeding, not in the botanical sense, anyway. As I said previously, it's a process of constant selection, not breeding. When a nursery grows a fantastic hybrid, they'll tell you that they bred for it's features when usually it cropped as a seedling from a very ordinary plant. This is how some of the best hybrids I've ever seen came about.

Buy yourself a copy of those notes Richard, you might just, no, you WILL learn something.

Tim

Well, I consider myself a hellebore breeder !! I don't use ordinary plants as my parent 'stock', I've got extremely high quality hellebores which I use for line breeding - I set out for certain qualities, assess each parent beforehand and introduce species blood when and if I see fit. You are talking about oddities which may crop-up when hybridising (nectary colour)- I have specific aims when breeding and am not particularly interested in the odd 'rogue' find... I keep detailed records of all my crosses, and repeat the best.

Try 'Plant breeding for gardeners, by F.R.McQuown. Cambridge

regards

Richard

Richard

Even when assessing the parents and setting out for certain qualities, you are still going to end up with a highly variable group of seedlings. This is unavoidable due to the mixed parentage of hybrids and also the high degree of variability present in many of the acaulescent species. It's highly likely that many plants which show different characteristics to what you you were aiming for will be better than the ones that do!!

Oddities don't just crop up when hybridising; take double torquatus and double dumetorum, both found in the wild. You can add dark foliage and dark nectaries to that list too. You say that you're not interested in the odd 'rogue' find.
That's bizarre!! As I said previously, some of the best hybrids I've ever seen have been 'rogues'!!

I agree that it's prudent to keep records, although in my experience I've found that repeating a cross between the same parents year after year can produce different looking plants every time. Obviously this is due to the mixed parentage.

The ONLY way to propagate a hellebore and be sure that the qualities will be passed on is by division, simple as that.
Trying to create seed strains is pointless too, you'd be forever weeding non-conformists out, not to mention that they are notoriously unstable. Put bluntly, seed strains are worthless. Many nurseries claim to have created their own seed strain. If their plant was in amongst nine others from different nurseries, there is no way that they could pick their own plant out, it wouldn't look any different!! They just see it as justification for the artificially high prices that they charge.
Anyway the seed strain argument is a whole different can of worms.....

This is what Will McLewin says about 'breeding' in his catalogue: 'For hybrids we grow plants from seed of our best specimens and select for improved or unusual characteristics; unlike others doing exactly the same thing we do not, pretentiously, call this 'breeding'.'
Well, thats a view that makes total sense to me and one that I agree with completely. I make no apologies for mentioning Will McLewin as much as I do as I believe that he knows more about hellebores that anybody else in the world. A dramatic statement I know, but true nonetheless.

Tim

At the end of the day, if you enjoy 'hybridising' as you say, or 'breeding' as others do, just do it !! Lifes to short !!. The bees are out humming around my plants, so I'm off to do some more plant breeding.

Will McLewin - I had some of his seed/plant lists a few years back - he may be big in hellebores, but he seems to have a very strange attitude which came over in his writing, like he was doing you a favour selling them to you. I stay clear away.....

Richard

I agree with your first paragraph but not with your second.
I know Will quite well (he's one of the nicest guys I've ever met) and don't think he has a strange attitude at all. He is quite simply a genius and this comes across in his writing which is always clear, straight to the point and a pleasure to read. He doesn't beat around the bush like so many people do, perhaps it is this quality that some people don't like; what a shame, perhaps the old saying' the truth hurts' is applicable here!!

He doesn't make out that he's doing you a favour by selling his plants to you, he's just pointing out that his plants are better than anybody elses and as an owner of dozens of his plants and hundreds of seedlings grown from his seed, I can confirm that this view is correct!! It's a shame that you stay clear away as you put it; you're cutting your nose off to spite your face.

Tim

Tim - I just like winding people up ! Enjoy your hellebores !!

Most of mine seem to have stopped giving any more new buds - there are plenty of seed pods forming - not really much work with the brush and (hopefully!) some good plants in a few years time...

regards

Richard

A comment on the comments on Barry Glick's helleborus. The fact is that his helleborus are outstanding for the US. His happens to be the only nursery in the US I have found that sells asexually propogated helleborus. All the rest are seed strains. Double helleborus -- which you so soundly deride -- are still little more than a myth in the US. Why no US company has thought to go to the UK, buy up some of the best clones, and introduce them to the US, I don't know, but the average American gardener still has to only dream of named clones of helleborus being widely avaliable. Hopefully they will before too long -- helleborus are gaining popularity over here.
Joseph.

Hi Jcoum,
If an American nursery were to come to the UK to buy clones, they would probably go home empty handed. Pretty much all of the named clones are extinct now (at least in a commercial sense anyway). Most of them were never widely available anyway; as I'm sure you're aware, the only way to propagate these plants is by division which isn't commercially viable when you are starting with only one or two named plants.

If you have a copy of 'The Gardener's Guide To Growing Hellebores' by Graham Rice and Elizabeth Strangman, you'll see pages and pages of descriptions of named clones (this is despite the fact that both the authors warn against naming hybrid hellebores!!). Anyway, you'd do well to find any of these plants for sale in a nursery. Sometimes you see some of the well known ones for sale such as 'Pluto' and 'Sirius', but are these really divisions of the original? Almost certainly not.

Basically, my point is that we in the UK are pretty much in the same boat as you guys in the US. Plenty of descriptions of named clones, but no plants to go with them!!

Tim

Hello Tim and Richard,
Been following this post,great morning wake up,realy like the breeding,hybridzing or should it be crossing or how bout throw the dice and select.I'VE been trying to get people to pollenate Hellebores,I fear that they don't understand how complex these (STRAINS) are.Untill one starts sprouting and growing open pollenated plants and see how wide and variable hybrid Hellebores are and then read about how easy they cross(hybridize, breed) in the wild, one conclusion might be ,what a mess,but what a hybridizers dream.An alpine plant,thats hybridise itself to the point that you can'T depend on true garden species from garden seed.If more gardners controlled the pollenation and kept track of thier cross, I beleave, Hellebores would be more predictable. There is so much mystery in this plant.Hellebores are so easy to grow,the seed simple to sprout,they do multiply slow but are so long lived.
My Hellebores have just emerged,no pollen yet.I have grown hundreds of Barry Glicks hybrid seedlings and have selelected the best plants.Trying to narrow this down to the best in each color range.It is my understanding that Hellebores enjoy out breeding,that one should be careful not to line breed,that it is best not to inbreed too far. Is this true.Oh Tim,if the exspression, breed, bothers you, please delete and insert cross,,please.
ALWAYS GARDENING
Bruce

Hello Bruce,
You've raised an interesting point about raising species hellebores from garden seed. I see on one of the other forums that a request for a hellebore forum has been put in and that enthusiasts might trade seed. With this in mind, it may be helpful to point out to these people that any seed saved from such plants should be labelled as (for example) 'hybrid from H.torquatus' and so on, rather than use just the species name. Apart from the fact that the seed almost definitely won't be pure, there is always the chance that the plant that they think is torquatus is in fact a hybrid!! I grow all of the species and don't let any of them set seed because of the uncertainty it would bring in keeping it.

Torquatus (and some of the other species) is such a variable plant anyway that you would never know what you had unless you knew that the plant was coll. from the wild or was grown from wild coll. seed. I'm going to Croatia soon (to study hellebores) and I plan to cross over into Bosnia. This is where torquatus grows, but I'm told that as you move back towards Croatia, torquatus blends seamlessly into multifidus multifidus. Many of the plants are intermediate between the two species-should be interesting (not to mention infuriating).

I'm not convinced that hellebores would be more predictable if records were kept of crosses. Sure, it does help but the problem is that the two parents used to create a hybrid will be of mixed (and complicated) parentage, so plants are always going to show variation that goes back many generations. As I've said, even species show variation, so of them so much that the plants can APPEAR to be influenced by another species. I have some plants that were collected in Hungary that are intermediate between odorus and dumetorum; the colony is near an odorus colony but a long way from any dumetorum-they are quite bizarre!

I guess if you were going for a pure colour it may make things easier. If you wanted a good yellow you could use odorus. Leaf pattern is hugely variable but flower colour isn't (in hellebore terms!!), it tends to vary between green, greeny yellow through to yellow. Obviously you'd start with two fairly good plants, cross them, then cross the two best offspring and so on. Here you have the start of a so-called 'strain'. I don't rate strains much because you still have a huge amount of variability; so many plants have to be rogued out, it hardly seems worth the bother. I'm more interested in species anyway, so I don't bother!!
This leads me neatly into answering your question; yes, if you keep crossing plants that have been created by one original cross with each other, you could eventually end up with weak plants. It's good to bring in new blood every so often.

Best Wishes,
Tim

p.s. Am jealous that you are about to start enjoying your hellebores. My hellebores are past their best now, seed pods are swelling nicely though, the weather has been strangely mild so far).

Tim,
So kind of you to respond to my post, I have alot to learn about Helleborus. I agree with you that Hellebores should be cloned, the problem is to come up with worthy plants to divide.I live in a rural area, gardened for many years, and grown not to trust mail order firms. I prefer to grow my own, select clones, and share plants, Imfo, you know, the old garden method. Plants should not be rushed, three years to flower NOT to long a wait, ten years NOT to long to have clones to share. Because of this attitude, the Hellebores that I have to work with is from Barry Glick. Barry has interest in certain plants I have, so we trade.
I would like to improve color and hardyness as well as having plants that divide and multiply easily. Barrys Hellebores emerge too early, another ten days would be best for my climate. As you mention seed grown plants have a huge variation both in flower and growth.
Is this variation soley do to crossing or does the species variation play a role in this?

Is the species variation due to overlaps in habitat with Hellebores being protogynous or is the species itself unstable and in evolution change?

Kindly Yours,
Bruce

Hi Bruce,
I prefer to grow my own too. As you say, you can pick and choose which plants to keep and apart from that it's much more satisfying to grow your own.

In answer to your first question, it's a bit of both I think. When hybrids were first created, I imagine that the colour range was limited, but as different species were introduced, the range grew larger, especially when hugely variable species such as torquatus, atrorubens and croaticus were introduced. Now, several decades down the line I imagine that the variation of hybrid hellebores is due to the plants having the genes of several different species, they are in effect mongrels!! As I said, a yellow hybrid SHOULD only produce yellow or yellow/green offspring as a species such as odorus and/or perhaps cyclophyllus would have been used to create it. Obviously if the plant is around other hellebores almost anything could crop up.
To summarise, I think that the variation we see in hybrid hellebores was originally started by the different, variable species being used to create them but today it is due to hybrids being crossed with hybrids; the boundaries are always being pushed and new colours or features are cropping up all the time. Basically, it's difficult to tell what species' genes are present in a hybrid unless it has for example, purple flowers (mostly torquatus) or yellow flowers (mostly odorus).

To (try) to answer your second question, I don't think the species are unstable. The problem is that there are very few easy, comforting answers to questions about species hellebores and this is probably something that we have to live with. Sometimes certain species do overlap in distribution and colonies can be found that contain mixed plants. For example, I have some plants that are labelled as H.orientalis/abchasicus intermediates. They were collected from a site in Abchazia, Georgia and the colony consisted of plants that looked like H.orientalis subsp. orientalis and some which looked like H.orientalis subsp.abchasicus and many plants in between. At the moment it is more helpful to refer to these plants as intermediates rather than hybrids as it's not known if they are actually hybrids. If they are hybrids, then they are TRUE orientalis hybrids!! Not like the plants which people still wrongly call orientalis hybrids which should be called H.x hybridus.

As I mentioned in a previous post, some species don't seem to overlap as such, they just blend into each other. In the Velebit in Croatia you have H.multifidus subsp.multifidus. As you move east some of these plants have the green flower that they should have but with a purple rim. Then as you move into Bosnia you will find H.torquatus. Just to add to the problems, plants of torquatus with totally green flowers occur in amongst 'normal' (I use that term loosely!) torquatus. Will McLewin finds these plants difficult to distinguish from H.multifidus subsp.multifidus but has to call them H.torquatus as calling them H.multifidus subsp.multifidus and the plants with purple flowers H.torquatus would be even worse; it would be total madness to walk into such a colony and say this plant is so and so and that plant is a different species and so on and so on.

And then you have the plants that are intermediate in that they seem to be influenced by another species but the species in question isn't around!! H.odorus seems to be the culprit more often than not. For example, there are atrorubens/odorus intermediates, dumetorum/odorus intermediates and multifidus istriacus/odorus intermediates; there are probably others too. I have read that perhaps the intermediates could be regarded as the species (using dumetorum/odorus intermediate as an example) and that the two plants that we currently know as the species ( dumetorum and odorus) are just extreme examples of it. As it was rightly pointed out in the text, this would mean that we would have very few true species plants and lots of mixed ones and as a result of this it will probably never happen.

Basically (or not!!) species hellebores are very complicated and I'm amazed that more work isn't being done on them. Personally, I find them enthralling and will go abroad every year to try and make more sense of them - at least in my own head anyway! They may be complicated but this doesn't stop them from being on the whole, excellent garden plants.

Best Wishes,
Tim

Tim,
You have been most helpfull, Hellerbore hybridsing using Helleborus x.hybridus with its mixed genes,does not look very promising, unless one just wants to throw new genes in and take your chances on the resulting plants. I certainly understand why you would want to seek out pure spieces. I will be sprouting more spieces and growing more spieces myself.
The problem I have is my climate. Its very harsh and can go to one extreme to another extreme. This past season has been dry with very little snow cover with mild temps but we could of had no snow with 25 below 0 deg.F. Last year in March we had over 4 feet of snow, April we had record breaking heat of 95 deg.F with many days of high temps and then in May we had record drought of less then 3 inches of rain. Some weeks, any week, any month of the year we can accumulate over 10 inches of rain. Last frost date is June 1st and September 1st. The Helleborus X.hybridus does not standup as well as Helleborus orientalis ssp. orientalis. H. orientalis ssp. orientalis, emerging later, more deciduous, stronger growing and divides easily. What would one do if you wanted to have the hardiness of orientalis but with a more pure color range. Should one just collect and grow many H.orientalis spieces and select clones or try crossing with other more northern spieces?I have and enjoy a very nice cream clone of H. orientalis ssp. orientalis. What other spieces should I try in this climate?
Tim good luck in your quest for Helleborus torquatus and multifidus, hope when you return to hear of your adventure!

Bruce
p.s. Tim have to agree with you, one breeds cows, you hybridise or cross plants.

Hi Bruce,
I don't see any reason why you couldn't grow any of the acaulescent species (odorus, cyclophyllus, multifidus, dumetorum, viridis, (true)orientalis, atrorubens, torquatus, purpurascens and croaticus). All of these species are regarded as totally hardy although plants could be lost in adverse weather conditions, but this statement applies to ALL so-called hardy plants. Hot summers shouldn't be a problem once the plants are established, indeed it's thought that hot summers help produce more flowers.

It's important to remember that most of the acaulescent species come from the Balkans; the former Yugoslavia, Greece, Hungary, Romania etc. All of these countries have very hot summers and usually very cold winters. Plants can be found anywhere from sea level, up to quite a high altitude.

It's interesting that you mention the hardiness of true H.orientalis as it's this quality that made H.orientalis such an important player in the production of todays hybrids.

You could grow the different subspecies of H.orientalis but there are only three so you'd be limiting your colour range. H.orientalis subsp.orientalis usually has white or greenish/white flowers, H.orientalis subsp.abchasicus usually has pink flowers and H.orientalis subsp.guttatus has small spots on the inside of the flowers.

I suppose you could start with a H.orientalis subsp.orientalis with flowers of a good shape and cross it with any acaulescent species that takes your fancy. Of course I must point out that what you are doing is basically what people started doing many decades ago when they realised that flowers of many different colours could be produced by crossing the acaulescent species with each other.
Nothing wrong with this though, I sometimes wonder if people get carried away with crossing plants of H.x hybridus with each other and forget that crossing pure species with each other could produce some extremely fine plants. I think that this aspect of hellebore hybridising is underrated and neglected. I wish I had more time to spend doing it. Maybe next year...

Best Wishes,
Tim

Tim - are there many species hellebores growing in England. Which ones might we see the the SW ?

regards

Richard

p.s if we don't breed plants, why are there Plant Breeders Rights

Hi Richard,
The only true native hellebore we have in the UK is H.viridis subsp.occidentalis. It's dotted around the UK but isn't considered all that common. I know of two colonies near me, one is about 18 miles away and the other is 25 miles away. I was in the colony furthest away only 4 weeks ago, I got some great photos. Not sure if there are any colonies down your way, you could probably find out by looking for records of the flora in your area, that's how I traced one of the colonies near me. H.foetidus does also occur in the wild here but only as a garden escape and isn't a true native. On the grass verge of the A1 at St.Neots, about 10 miles away from me is a solitary H.foetidus, when it's in flower it sticks out like a sore thumb.

With regards to Plant Breeders Rights; When I say that nobody breeds hellebores, I am talking only about hellebores, indeed I didn't mention any other plant genus/species. For me, the variation of H.x hybridus is the weak link of the argument. Aiming for particular qualities when crossing hybrid hellebores is a hit and miss affair. Some hellebore growers claim that their plants all have outward facing flowers or strong flower stalks etc.etc. All of these features have cropped up randomly in my own seedlings. Most, if not all of these kinds of features are difficult to stabilise to a point where the majority of plants are exhibiting the desired characteristics. Many of the plants will be 'normal'. Because of this, I agree with the people that call the whole process 'selection'. You have to remember that many things written about hellebores, apply only to hellebores as they are such an awkward plant!
Anyway, it's been a great year for them, hasn't it?

I'd be interested to know if you discover any colonies down your way. If you can't find anything on the web, the local library should be able to help. I used both; the web was very good as I found a website called 'The Flora of Cambridgeshire'. Perhaps something similar has been published for your county.

Best Wishes,
Tim

Hi Tim, thanks for the info.

By the way 'Aiming for particular qualities when crossing hybrid hellebores is a hit and miss affair' - after seeing the Hilliers Nursery polytunnels bursting with their exceptional quality hybridus plants, I'm afraid I don't agree with your argument !.

regards

Richard

They only let you see what they want you to see. They keep the best plants for themselves and pass the crap on to the garden centres. I've seen plants from Ashwood, Hillier, Harvington and also plants that supposedly derived from Helen Ballard stock in various garden centres and only a few of them were good plants, most have dull, muddy flowers.
Yet if you go direct to these growers, most of the plants are good - it's no coincidence!!

It's not only my opinion that aiming for particular qualities when crossing hellebores can be a hit and miss affair, it's a well known fact!! THE INHERENT VARIABILITY OF THE PARENT PLANTS, that is why. When you cross two hybrid hellebores, you never know quite what you will get. Why do think that hellebores with double flowers or dark nectaries are so expensive? It's because many of the plants grown from seed taken from these plants end up not having the desired (and usually unstable) feature.

Try to stabilise a feature such as outward facing flowers, to the point where the majority of the plants have the feature. If you succeed, you will be the first to do so.

Best Wishes,
Tim

Richard,
Have you sprouted and grown any offspring from the H.hybridus plants of either crossed or open pollenated and seen the results.

Tim,
Jelitto in 2001 started offering "Schmieman Strain Ladys Series", Jelitto claims this srtain is 80% or more true to color and offers six seperate colors. Have your doubts, me to. I purchased blue, red, and white. I've grown them thru the winter and they have thier first true leaves so I will let you know in 2 to 3 years.

Richard,
Do you think that if they have isolated seperate colors that I will be able to take this strain and do the same, I doubt it.

I think that your both right. Large companys will be able to produce certain genectic traits in very controled conditions, with very limited and short supply parents.But to repeat these results at home in your own garden will be impossible. Look at Primroses,Pansies,Garden Mums,Dalhias.Will these hellebore be good, hardy, garden plants or grown just for thier flower? Will we, are we sacrificing a hardy long lived perennial for a seed grown beding plant!

Tim and Richard your both,I think, are correct, trouble is we all loose, my aim in crossing is to produce a hardy plant, that stands up well to adverce weather, can be reproduced by division with good results and hasn't LOST the hellebore architecture, the erect plant with the horizontal look, that it has from its nodding flowers.

Kindly Always,
Bruce

Hi Bruce,
Yes, like you, I do have my doubts!! That's not to say that the plants that aren't the colour that they should be won't be good plants though. I'm sure some of them will be just fine. I'm most doubtful about the blue as a true blue hellebore has yet to be released. The trouble with producing such a colour is that the the 'flower' is actually a modified calyx and therefore the sepals that make this up, act differently to a normal flower. A hellebore flower may open dark purple, fade to blue for a few days a then fade even further and the nursery will still maintain that it has a blue flower!!!(even if only for a day or two). I've only ever seen one hellebore that had a flower that was close to a blue - it wasn't for sale!!

It raises an interesting point about seed strains. For every 10 plants that a nursery raises from a seed strain and that match their criteria, there are a good number of plants from the same batch of seedlings that don't. They don't tell you this of course, so when you buy some of these seeds, say a packet of 20, 10 maybe OK and the other 10 don't look anything like they should do. They may be very good plants, but if you're buying seeds from a strain, you would want a better success rate than 50% - I would anyway.

Oh yes, I agree that hellebores look best with nodding flowers. Who wants outward facing ones? Nodding flowers make you interact with the plant by having to physically lift it to see into it. And that's what I like.

Best Wishes,
Tim

My hellebores are 'podding' nicely at the moment !!, and a few questions arise !! my x Sternii has pods on it - would this produce seed or is the plant sterile ?. My argutifolius is also showing plenty of seed pods, but last year I never got around to harvesting the seed - it seemed to have the green pods present, and then because of time, I never saw the pods ripen - was this because I did not hand pollinate the flowers and hence seed set did not properly happen, or do they 'throw' their seed all of a sudden ?!.

With my Dumertorum 'Apple Green' plant, I plan to sow the seed and subsequently sell the offspring. I cannot find out if the particular plant has plant breeders rights', so aim to sell my seedlings/plants as a selected green strain , I presume there would be no problems doing this ?!!

many thanks

Richard

Hello Richard,
H.x sternii is fully fertile. H.argutifolius should set plenty of seed without hand pollination. They don't throw their seed suddenly but they do drop it quite suddenly. I always go for a walk around the garden before work to check on the seed pods and then do the same when I get home from work eight hours later. Pods that were full in the morning can quite often be empty by the time I get home!!

Concerning the H.dumetorum that you have, it's strange that the grower of it felt it neccessary to give it a cultivar name as dumetorum always has green flowers. The shade of green can vary but this doesn't warrant a cultivar name. Because of the variability of H.dumetorum I think it would be impossible for a grower to impose Plant breeder's Rights on it. I don't think it would be worth labelling your plants up as a selected green strain either as you may get a few strange looks from people that are familiar with the species. I'd label them up as simply H.dumetorum, I'm sure that they'd sell just as well. I like dumetorum and the other green flowered species, they're very underrated.
Good Luck with your Hellebores.

Best Wishes,
Tim

excellent !thanks very much Tim !good job there's the internet as most of the books can't answer my'niggling' questions !. With argutifolius, I cannot remember ever seeing the pods with seed that looked ripe ( as per the hybridus that have the black fully ripened seed) - do you collect them in the green stage ?.

And another ! if my Sternii has been around Dumertorum might there a chance this has been cross-pollinated by the bees ( although I suppose that the plant has probably been self pollinated by wind transferred pollen!).

regards

Richard

With H.argutifolius, H.x sternii and H.foetidus, rather than harvest the flowers or pods individually, I wait until I see a few empty pods (pods that have dropped their seed on the ground) and I then cut off at ground level the whole flower stem. I then place the whole thing upside down in a paper bag. Over the next few days the seed will carry on ripening and will gather in the bottom of the bag. It's quite important not to jump the gun by cutting the flower stem (and do take the whole stem, not just the flowers) too early, you must wait until you see some pods that have already split.

There is as good as no chance that your H.x sternii has crossed with your H.dumetorum. H.x sternii is caulescent and H.dumetorum is acaulescent and it is generally accepted that the caulescent and acaulescent species cannot be hybridised with each other.

Best Wishes,
Tim

Great, my argutifolius production line starts this year then!. Talking of which, I have a small argutifolius, which was given to me without a label, the leaves are light green with highly variagated cream, the stems have some reddish/brown colouring. The plant has a delicate look to it - is there a cultivar called 'Silver Lace' ?!!

The plant does not seem to get the black die-back that the pure species plants get also !

regards

Richard

Hi Richard,
H.argutifolius 'silver lace' tends to be similar to normal H.argutifolius but with a silver wash or sheen on the surface of the leaves. Sounds to me that you may have another cultivar called 'pacific frost'.

Tim

Most of my hybridus are hooded now - I used squares of mosquito netting - shame the sunny weather has dissapeared ! as the sun would have aided ripening !.

I did not think that hellebores suffered from aphid attack, until I spotted some adults clustered around some seedheads !.

Going back to hand-pollination, the majority of my plants have set seed (seemingly!) well. However, my yellow shade hybridus has a majority of pods which have not set and have a withered appearance . Does the yellow factor have something to do with the plant being of a lesser standard than the other colours ?. Not sure if my wording is entirely right here, but after hand-pollination of the yellow, it was the only plant where the stamens didn't fall from the bloom and the prevailing botrytis caused a lot of the flowers to rot off entirely. What I'm trying to say is.. do yellows have a poorer constitution ?

thanks

Richard

Hi Richard,
My hellebores suffer terribly from aphid attack. The first thing that I usually notice is the honeydew on the leaves below. I've just got back from Croatia and found many of my plants covered. Although I found thousands of hellebores whilst in Croatia I didn't see one single plant with an aphid on it!!

You've raised an interesting point about hellebores with yellow flowers maybe being weak plants (or at least some of them anyway). I have owned several weak yellow flowered hellebores. I could be that a good, clear yellow has been a popular aim for people interested in such things and that plants and their offspring have been continually selfed to the point of self destruction, resulting in poor quality, inbred plants. I don't look for yellow H.x hybridus anymore, instead concentrating on finding good yellow forms of H.odorus.

Best Wishes,
Tim

Hi Tim, Hi Richard,
I have never had an aphid on my hellebores (yet). I do have aphids on other plants. Someone suggested the cold winters.I have no idea why I do not have any.

I have one nice yellow hybrid, I did not pollenate by hand, but it has much less seed pods then the other x hybridus that are pollenated on their own. It seems to be a strong growing plant, but is only four years old. I have no botrytis on hellebore, but do on peony and other plants. Tim is botrytis evident in Croatia?

Well I hope the both of you have a good seed collection year, you probaly have finished collecting allready.

Kindly,
Bruce

I didn't see any hellebores in Croatia that had botrytis on them. The vast majority of the plants that I saw were very healthy. I finished harvesting my seed today.It's been a very good year with several thousand seeds coming from my plants. All that's left to do now is to tidy them up.

Tim

Now something really annoying has happened !!!. Whilst surveying my stock plants this afternoon, I found a hoard (25!!!!!!!!) of my hand-pollinated flowerheads (still in their protective net sleeves under some of my plant staging. It looks as if the local squirrels have been at work - small holes in the bags and all the seeds gone. I thought it might have been voles, but I do not think they would have hoarded their ill gotten gains !. I can only assume that the netting attracted them to the seeds as it looks a bit like the nut-feeder mesh. Has anyone else suffered this ? I am now facing a problem, as for next Spring I had planned to plant-out all my stock plants into the garden and collect the seed outside (after suffering some aphid attack/botrytis under glass).

Our only saving grace is that we have already collected and sown 2500+ hybridus seeds and they are protected from the squirrels!

regards

Richard

Hi Richard,
We have voles, field mice, deer mice, chipmonks, red squirrels, grey squirrels and flying squirrels and it is always a race to see who collects the most seed. They all seem to enjoy hellebore seed.

Bruce

thanks Bruce !.

Tim - I'd be interested to know how you sow/keep your hellebore seed you collected recently and what sort of protection you give it/location/watering etc!!
many thanks

Richard

Hi Richard,
I hope you don't mind but I answered your questions in the hellebore forum as Bruce had created a thread regarding these issues. The thread is 'harvesting, storing, mailing and planting seeds'.

Best Wishes,
Tim

I had an excellent time last week finding my first hellebores growing in the wild - foetidus growing @ La Tania in the French Alps.....amazing !!!!! - saw several groups of plants, approximately 20 individuals, but only a few large enough to have seed pods on them - I was surprised that they still had some seed left, the foliage was very fine and looked a darker green than those I have seen available in garden centres etc.

I am now after more foetidus plants this coming Spring to try and hybridise. Tim - when should I expect my first flowers from my new wild seed (I have just sown fresh) - would they flower in two years ?.

What I noted was that the foetidus plants that had set seed, seemed very yellow plants, almost as though they were going to set seed and die perhaps ?!.

After searching for the plants in the wild, spurred on by several handbooks, it was quite interesting seeing different plants in their very different habitats, a few metres to the left and right and the growing terrain changed completely and a whole array of different species flourished !!

Richard

Hello Richard,
I'm pleased that you found some hellebores growing in the wild. It's a great feeling isn't it?
It's a feeling that I don't think I'll ever get used to or tired of.

If you grow them well they could flower in two years after germination, although the seeds may take two years to germinate. It's probably more accurate to say that the seeds may germinate over a period of two years. I always find germination of H.foetidus erratic. It's frustrating because in a pot of ten seeds, five may germinate quickly and you know that you may have to wait quite a long time for the rest to germinate.

I don't tend to grow a lot foetidus anymore but when I do, I tend to sow a large amount of seeds, far more than I need to. Doing this allows me to prick out the 'first wave' and throw away the seeds that haven't germinated. If I sow a few hundred seeds this method provides me with more than enough plants.

Best Wishes,
Tim

thanks Tim - erratic germination !!- what a shame, although the foliage of the wild plants is worth waiting for .

regards

Richard

hellebores are showing in the garden centres already... 9CM plants with labels quoting 'orientalis' , £3.99 each !!!, parentage totally unknown, steer well clear !!!

Nothing to do with hybridisation, but I recently saw at Cleeve garden centre, Bristol examples of helleborus foetidus 'Wester Flisk' in about 10 litre + pots @ £30+ -seemed a bit overpriced !!!!!!!

Richard

Tim - I don't suppose you have any divisions or plants of thibetanus you might be willing to sell at all ?!!. My other hellebore plants are starting to flower and I still haven't managed to obtain one a year after talking about them !!

regards

Richard

Hello Richard,
I'll email you privately.

Tim

Thanks for the e-mail Tim - with your species plants grown out in the open - do you hand pollinate the specific species in order to obtain seed or do you just grow for the enjoyment of having them in your garden ?
(if the latter, have you ever collected any seed and come up with some surprising (natural) crosses ?!)

regards

Richard

Hi Richard,
I grow a considerable number of species hellebores, most of which are in two or three litre rose pots at the moment. They will soon be moved to a small patch of land that I've recently acquired and will finally be planted out. I am fascinated with the complex problems that persist within the genus and all of my plants have been acquired or grown by myself with study and research in mind. None have been grown to sell or simply for the fun of it.

I tend not to hand pollinate my acaulescent species plants as I could never be sure that the resultant seed would be pure, especially with so many species growing so close together. I remove the flowers as they fade because many of the species are slow enough, without having to produce seed as well. I grow species hellebores only from wild collected seed of known provenance.

I have dabbled with crossing one species with another but haven't produced anything special to date. My heart isn't really in it and I find myself wanting to do more and more research on the acaulescent species.

Best Wishes,
Tim

Hellebores are doing well at the moment - must admit that I am swaying away from the darker colours and am amazed by the beauty of some of the picotee buds now opening (boughton plants so far!). However, I have been very busy hand pollinating and am trying (hybridus) pink speckled with each other, blacks with black, purples with black,'Blue moon' with blacks, picotees with each other (hedging my bets on the outcome as I have no real idea what to expect),pink&whites with picotee amongst others.

Also experimenting with picotee hybridus pollen on a good example of dumertorum, Eric Smith Black (&purple) pollen on purpurascens, niger pollen on argutifolius. I am aiming also to try for foetidus x argutifolius just for the hell of it !! and am looking for some gold-leaved foetidus to cross with foetidus 'Wester Flisk'.

One of our first 3 year old hybridus has eventually!!! after about a month, opened it's first bud - I was not expecting much and hoped for a good colour overall even if the shape might be less than perfect. Well...it's white with a little green and the shape is, without being big-headed..marvellous - would my best bet be to self the plant (not usually desirable I know) to obtain seedlings quite like their parent ?!).

Unfortunately the seedling came from open-pollinated seed - if I had hand-pollinated to produce this plant, my aim would have been to cross it with one of it's sister seedlings but this is not an option!!.

Our foetidus seedlings originating from seed collected in La Tania in the French Alps have just had their first pricking-out session today (300ish) with approximately another 200+ to go !. I have tagged plants showing red stems to keep back for breeding purposes, though the majority are green. However the parent plants were fine in themselves with just green stems and fine-leaved foliage !

How are your plants/crosses doing ?!

regards

Richard

Hello Richard,
My hellebores are doing well. Hybrids are in full flower but more surprisingly so are most of the acaulescent species. H. torquatus wouldn't normally flower here for another three or four weeks. Unfortunately I lost some flower stalks on species plants due to the excessive wet period we had a few weeks ago that was followed by several hard frosts but the plants are still alive and kicking.

I've done a few crosses this year but I don't really have much enthusiasm for this and it's just something to do on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon. I will always grow hybrid hellebores in considerable numbers but my time will be mainly devoted to the species. I have large numbers of HxH to prick out and I never look forward to this task. Species seed has only just started to germinate in any numbers and will probably carry on doing so for another six weeks or so.
I've also been dividing hybrid plants; another task that always seems to take longer than I intended it to.

Regarding your plant with the white flower; yes, you could self pollinate it, pick the best two seedlings and then cross them with each other. Perhaps you might be able to eliminate the green.

Best Wishes,
Tim

Hi Tim - saw viridis for the first time today - but what horrible blackspot - does it always suffer from this ? it put me off buying some specimen!.
anyway! to the point !!!, is it possible to cross helleborus x. Sternii with any other hellebore would you know ?.

Hello Richard,
Was the plant labelled up as just H. viridis?
The reason I ask is because the plant commonly known as H. viridis subsp. occidentalis (our native) is now officially known as H. occidentalis and H. viridis subsp. viridis is now classified as simply H. viridis. The separation was long overdue as the two plants are very different.

I know of a colony of H. occidentalis not too far away from where I live and none of the plants have blackspot. In fact all of the plants are very healthy and the colony seems to be thriving.

H.x sternii can be crossed with niger to produce x ericsmithii. It can be crossed with either of it's parents too (argutifolius and lividus). If you are looking to produce x ericsmithii I would use niger as the seed parent. The size of the flower makes it easier to emasculate. I haven't done this cross but I did cross lividus with niger in March 2001 and it was very successful. I now have several H.x ballardiae in flower as a result.

Best Wishes,
Tim

Has anyone tried the cross of argutifolius x foetidus that is supposed to be a waste of time ?

Richard