Hellebores

Our current weather (wet, wet, wet) is definitely not conducive to gardening, so I haven't much of interest to write about. Today it's my turn to cook, so I'll be writing about that for tomorrow. For the time being though, all I can offer you is some photos of my Hellebores. There is very little color in my garden at present, so these provide a bit of welcome relief from gray and green.
The well-established ones (now in their 3rd year) are covered with flowers:

Hellebore flowers are "shy", so you have to lift them up to get a good look at them.


The biggest one has very pale pink flowers.

Funnily enough, on the same plant some of the flowers have plain petals, whereas others are "crinkly".

This dark-coloured one was given to me last year by my friend Alice, a very accomplished florist. Her website is here - Lock Cottage Flowers.

The plant is not big yet, but the flowers are lovely.

There are lots of buds like this coming up, so hopefully in a few weeks I will have a more comprehensive display. I have found that Hellebores grow very slowly!

I'm not sure about this one. It doesn't look very healthy to me.

This is the "Red Spotted Hybrid" one that I bought at a Garden Centre two years ago. The leaves are very mottled. This usually means one of two things: either it has a mineral deficiency, or it has been affected by a virus. I'll try feeding it and see if that makes any difference. If it doesn't I will consider disposing of it.

Meanwhile, my tiny Hellebore seedlings have been nibbled by slugs, so after taking this photo I have put some slug pellets round them. Having been in the ground since June, these are too precious to lose!

There are 9 seedlings in that pot, and two of them are now just bare stems.