Cat's eyes: Hellebore's in seed

I was puttering around the garden when I noticed some odd looking things on one of the hellebore's leaves:

At first I thought they could be pest eggs, or little cocoons, but after they rolled right off the leaf into my hand I knew I had my mini-gold mine:  hellebore seeds!

They are surprisingly pretty, like gray cat's eyes, little gems  or black freshwater pearls.  If they didn't eventually turn into hellebores, I'd want to turn them into beads and make lovely drop earrings with them.  If, also hellebores didn't take forever to go to seed (at least to me) wouldn't these make great freshwater pearl substitutes?! (Except the seeds seems to lose water and get a bit shrivel-y like which is less attractive.)

(I like how they are next to my wedding band... though the colors aren't so good here in the pic,  I think they're prettier than diamonds)

(My postman, who was coming by at that time admired them and said they reminded him of "some awesome tempered steel," to which I replied was "very romantic." :)  He grinned and said he was more of a mechanical guy!)

I am sad to say, that while I have heard that hellebores self seed, I think, as the bed they were in is full of other things, I might have been pulling up little seedlings in the past years.

D'OH. (actual dictionary word now!)

Either way, now I have seeds, fresh ones that I can sow in their own happy little pots so I will know what a hellebore seedling looks like in real life (and not just on the internet if I so care to research it).  I know that this will be a red hellebore (more pink/mauve if I say so).  I do somewhat lust after the other colors and would like to cross my hellebores with my neighbor's, who has done nothing with his and didn't even know what they were (his mother planted them).  Mystery colors, that's what I want!

(

(Hellebore flower+bee=seeds! and now sad and dried out looking open pods)

To help me with propagating my gems, I turn to my trusty The American Horticultural Society book, Plant Propagation, edited by the nearly unbelievable gentleman's name, Alan Toogood. (A gift many Christmases ago by my wonderful sister in law).

In summary:
-sow fresh seed immediately as old dry seeds can be spotty in germination
-seed may need a winter to break dormancy
-will germinate in autumn or spring, and flower after 2-3 years.

Unfortunately, not many more details.  Hurray for the internet!  Of course there'd be a a society for hellebores!

Being a bit more specific, they suggest sowing under a quarter inch of soil (pretty much the 3-4 seed depth rule), will need to be stratified (aka, just let it sit outside for some seasons and wait), cite that it might take up to 6-18 months for germination and potentially take 3-4 years for flowering (bummer).

I wonder if I might be able to induce germination by freezing seeds for a day or two (works well with nasturtiums I have found).  I'll probably try that with a few of the seeds just as an experiment.  A couple of pots just sitting in the same area and conditions that the current hellebore is in, one with just fresh sown seed which will just sit around and be naturally stratified, the other pot with some previously frozen seed.  Of course, the problem with forcing the seeds to germinate early like that is that it will be forced to fend through the summer.  Oh, my curiosity can be cruel, sorry seedlings!

I'll update you (in 6-18 months apparently) if anything crops up and I don't forget about the pots :)

Weekends are for fruits and flowers: Part 2 (Warning: PIC HEAVY)

Though the vegetable garden is still coming along a little slow (at least in my personal time-space perspective), The flowers are have a good ol' time and continue to be breathtaking.

I received a white iris from one of my master gardener neighbors a year ago which I plunked in a very random corner of the yard because I had no idea where I wanted to put it/hadn't had time to dig up some grass for it, so there it sat for an entire year.  This spring I chopped it in half as it made some good growth and I realized that I wanted some permanent leafage in front of a fence so I transplanted one half there and kept the other half in its original location, undisturbed so that I could at least see what was up with this iris's flowers.  Here are the results! (reminder, pics are smaller than usual for easier loading, please click on them to expand them if you wish to see them in their full glory):

Love taking zoomed in detail shots!  As you might guess, I am a Georgia O'Keefe fan.  The stripes/speckles make me think of a white tiger.

It's like the iris has a fuzzy tongue!

I don't know why but this makes me think of ballet, or white sheets in the wind.

 The hellebores are still coming along!  Pods developing and looking wicked and spiky.

This hellebore innard's only have 3 pods developing, vs the 4 above.  I liked how they crossed like this.

A self seeded pansy from last year's winter.  I wonder if some mixed because this doesn't look like the plain purple I had before.  If you could only see them in real life! Huge flowers, wonder aroma and the colors are truly vibrant.  They seem to be doing well in the part shade under my tree and producing loads of flowers.

I like this fern uncurling, makes me think of an infant with its fists curled.

Mama and baby fern

I will never stop loving fluffy dandelion seed heads!  I like how this one is just barely holding on.

Have a great weekend and hope you're enjoying the little things in life.

Hellebores aren't a bore!

Hellebores, aka Lenten Roses are what keeps me going in crummier times when the weather reverts back to rainy, colder nastiness.

It's a tough plant that makes me think of s bike chick or something, with those leathery dark green sharply serrated leaves, the older ones often scarred and slightly tattered up (if you leave them as long as I do in their au naturale state, not pruning off the old bits).

It's interesting to watch the stages of the flower development, sometimes a difficult task as their heavy heads are always drooping towards the ground.  The young "flowers" (I suppose like most flowers at their best) are at my favorite stage with their yellow green cupped circle of the hellebore's true flowers.  The larger petal-y areas surrounding the flowers are actually the sepals/calyces of the plant, usually a longer lasting section of a plant than true flower petals.  Bells of Ireland are another plant I like that with a similar "flower" concept. 

Later when the "flowers" get older the inner true flower shrivels up and a pod fills the inside of the sepals, which is equally pretty and I will try to document.

Here's some more pics of my Hellebores on a nicer day (pardon the sort or repetition, I often find subtle differences in light or angle that make them interesting to me.  Also, as always, click on pic to expand):