A bowl of hellebores

 

A double hellebore and a single

Warning! This post is full of pretty pictures.  Finally.  It seems like its been a long time since I had actual real life flowers in the garden.  Only these technically aren't in the garden, they are sitting on my kitchen table.  You have to give a hellebore points for coming to the rescue in an hour of flowery need, when the rest of the garden has yet to awaken from its wintery slumber.  I do however find their growing habit of facing the ground and the extreme cold temperatures a hindrance to my enjoyment of these rather lovely beauties.  So I eliminate both problems by cutting the flowers off and floating them in a bowl water-lily style.

Hellebores on mass all colour co-ordinated

This is the only method I am aware of that keeps the hellebores open and looking good.  Standing the stems in a vase of water just seems to result in floppy flowers that collapse in on themselves.  The face of the flower really is the best bit and they make a real stunner of a table centrepiece when floating on mass like I have done.

The best thing about hellebores is they are all already colour co-ordinated with each other, so putting a visually attractive display together is not too much of a stretch.  They only come in shades of purple, white and green so nothing clashes and its all harmonious.  But the three I have here are different enough in pattern and structure to still be interesting.

Its all a bit girly and pretty

While all three are pleasing, I think my favourite is the dark double because of its structure.  The ones here look particularly good because the flowers are quite small.  I got a bit overexcited cutting off flowers from the other two plants and already had quite a full bowl before I raided the dark plant.  I therefore took the smallest freshly opened flowers to fit in the few remaining holes.  Hopefully the mother won't notice that her plant will have a slight lull in opened flowers as the old ones die off and the new ones are swimming in my bowl.  Because they are freshly opened the colour is darker and more intense.  As the flowers get older the colour fades off to a more lighter browny purple.

The water bowl method works pretty well but the flowers do still kind of relax into the water after a day or two and become quite flat.  Doubles are probably quite good for this as they don't really have the option of going flat on you.  Its still a great method for enjoying them, and even my other half who wouldn't notice a pretty flower if one assaulted him in the face sat down the other day and said "wow that looks really good".  So there we have it; the royal seal of approval.

This isn't one of mine but is instead a little sneak peak of my recent trip to Kew gardens in London.  It was absolutely freezing outside so we spent most of our time in the greenhouses but I did spot this little beauty outside.  I do enjoy flowers in pale green.  Like I have said before, I would definitely have more but they are pretty pricey and I always seem to spend my money elsewhere.