Oh Hell...ebore- a quick garden post

In folklore, hellebore is used to call forth demons and curse enemies but who has time for that these days. In the Victorian language of flowers, the secondary meaning for hellebores is hope. These flowers bloom in dark winter days and are the loveliest reminders that spring is on the way. There's a bit of pareidolia in this first picture. It's perfectly normal to make voices for one's plants, right?  

Looking back on my blog, I realized that I haven’t really shown off these black beauties! Last year was the first time that one of the black hellebore plants bloomed. I think I bought six or so in 2019. This year, more have come in. I was told that it would take about 3-4 years for them to bloom so they're right on target and they are completely worth the wait! 

Of course, like the smartest gardener ever, I put the tags in the soil believing that I will simply recall the names of each. Nope. No idea. I usually drop pictures of tags in Facebook because I do know myself pretty well and that is a way for me to try to help future me. But I haven't found those photos. Anyway, they're hellebores and they're pretty darn black to dark purple to maroon to a more blue-black. I already had the hellebore blooms that begin with pink and age into a gorgeous green. 

In fact, I have little plants popping up out of the ground and I cannot for the life of me recall what I planted. I did move the Bela Lugosi daylilies around last year after finally splitting them. All the new black iris bulbs were unfortunately eaten by voles (even while being planted in the metal baskets) or attacked by bugs. I still have some Dracula’s Kiss irises that seem to have made it. 

This morning I did notice just the tiniest sprouts of the Bleeding Hearts. The Valentine Bleeding Heart that I left in a pot is already a noticeable size. The one in the ground is thimble size. We had snow a few days ago and the hellebore blooms were completely not affected. In fact, I think the snow just watered them. Here's a look at a few.