No, they are not the same. No. 1 is first flowering on a seedling. No. 2 is not up to fully in bloom yet, It is a bit more of a star than No. 1 and slightly larger, well over 3 inch, and presents itself very upright facing outward. It has about 2 dozen or more flower spikes and is quite a show fully open. Best of all it fades away wonderfully over several weeks going through many gorgeous pastel creams and tans before petal drop.

I have several much darker and near blacks which I grew from seed from 'Elizabethtown Hellebores'. I have some wonderful others from there also but unfortunately they no longer are supplying them.

Yeah, I think EH basically faded away didn't it? I love nigers that fade to pinks.

Beautiful! I love your Niger variety! It looks so pure. The dark hybrid is very striking too. Some of mine blooming this week:

Berry Swirl

Apricot Blush looking more pink than apricot

Pheobe

Yellow Double

Nice, I killed an apricot blush some years ago by failure to plant (sad).

Karen... The yellow double is very good. I have several doubles in the pink-purple range and a very nice double white from Betty Rancikar seed From Elizabethtown Gardens but all my yellows are single.

I just wish the foliage on niger would stand up a bit straighter. Flowering is wonderful but the hybrids have much better garden appeal year-around from the foliage.

Thanks, dbarron and geoforce! I too love the yellow double eventhough it is not a named variety. I wish that it would multiply faster though. I would not mind having a few clumps of those. It looks much better than my Golden Lotus. I still have a few more that are just putting out buds.

I don't have a single so-called named variety (Mericlone propagated) plant except for one pink anemone flowered one. I'm particularly partial to anemone flowered hellebores and allow many of the seedlings from the doubles to mature as that is where they mostly creep in. So far, I have a few from these but no really spectacular ones. Also a few nice doubles, but again nothing unique.

I have not been able to propagate any hellebores from seeds. Are my hellebores sterile? They bloomed but no seeds formed. I have not seen any seedlings sprouted around the area that I planted the hellebores. Anyway, I went and splurged today at the local nursery. I bought 2 Frostkiss series hellebore, Anna's Red and Molly's White. Boy, they are expensive! I don't think I have ever spent this much on hellebores! But I really like their tall stems and large outward facing flowers. I would really like to make some seeds with these flowers for the above attributes noted, particularly tall stems. Do you know how to hybridize hellebores? Is the process the same as other flowers?

Karen, those are x iburgensis hybrids and are sterile. They will not produce seeds and being patented, you can't legally propagate them (although if some day down the road you decide to divide them, I won't tell anyone :-)).

Not all that many hellebores will produce seeds freely. The species plants of course and the x hybridus hybrids. But most of the other hybrids that are so popular these days are sterile. And patented.

Gardengal, thanks for letting me know. I am sad to find out that they are sterile. These hybrids are truly a breakthrough for hellebores. Their tall stems and outward facing flowers make them so attractive. Have you grown them? Do they increase well? Do they suffer from division?

Not those specifically but many of the other complex, sterile, intersectional hybrids. In fact I grow more of those than I do the xhybridus types (even though these produce seed quite freely). I prefer their foliage, which typically looks good year round in my climate with little need for removal (as with the xhybridus) and because they do have very erect, upward facing flowers produced over a long season. They do increase to become a good sized clump but slowly. And any hellebore can be divided but I'd wait until a very generously sized plant before I did so.