Miscellaneous Spring Garden Stuff, continued

Helleborus orientalis or probably a hybrid thereof, the Lenten Rose. Once again, a plant located near the foundation of the basement fireroom, although a couple of feet out. Just buds showing so far, although plants of this species elsewhere on the property are barely showing their tips. Lenten Rose and its hybrids are the more commonly grown Hellebores, at least in this country. Their flowers range in colour from whites to greens, from all shades of pink to red, deep purple (almost black), blue shades apparently, and may often have spots.


An excellent surprise still, the third year running: foliage buds of the Blue Himalayan Poppy, Mecanopsis betonicifolia or M. grandis or a hybrid of those. Plants which flowerd last year are not showing, they grow "pups" or sidebuds and then frequently die but the youngsters take over the show. No sign of self-seeding yet.


A peony root searching for "more cold please". Not all of them do this, sometimes it's just how the mulch breaks down or the frost heaves or erosion occurs. I'll probably cover this a bit later in the spring. This is Paeonia kesrouanensis. I know this because there is a label on a stick just beside it-- not from looking at the buds!



Arum italicum pictum, Italian Arum. Non-flowering-size plants. I didn't realize they showed up so early! A bit of frostbite on one of the painted leafs. The pictum form is supposed to have the white-patterned leaf, but these are grown from seed and I'm not sure whether to expect all of them to develop a pattern as they mature.

That Elusive Holy Grail- Blue Poppies

The Himalayan Poppy, a common name encompassing Mecanopsis betonicifolia and Mecanopsis grandis and their hybrids and maybe a few other species... Depending on where you live on this great world, they may be easy for you to grow. In Nova Scotia they are one of those frustrating things that grows well in the odd place but not at all just across the property line.

For years I would diligently acquire seed of the above 2 species and try to start some. Most years the seed germinated and then expired through a bout of cold or hot weather, or sun or cloud, at just the wrong time. If all the stars were in proper alignment and everything was good with them my mind would wander and they would dry out the day before I brought the water to them... The few that made it to a spot in the ground in my great outdoors would be eaten by night critters.

Then, 2 years ago I was given a few small plants and some useful advise which has resulted in flowers last year and this! The trick was, a moist partly shaded location, but not wet; and I had just managed to create one by dumping dead pots of sand/compost mix in a mounded heap over a boggy part of the yard. And then the real advice: weak soluble fertilizer applied every week during the first summer, to encourage the poppies to grow offsets from the single crown of the initial plants. The idea (working so far) is that the oldest crowns will flower and probably die in any given summer and then the secondary crowns will survive into the following year-- and so on.