Hellebores don’t last too long once picked, but gosh they do look spectacular in bouquets. Here are two beautiful examples of this winter bloom at its best. The top photo, from Wedding Chicks, shows hellebores teamed with rosemary, lavender and green ranunculi, and the bottom photo, from Butterfly Philosophy, sees them partnered with white daffodils and ranunculi. Both are so, so lovely. Head to your local garden centre and you’ll find plenty of these plants in store now, ready for planting. They like a party shaded position in free-draining soil. The latter is very important if you want to keep these plants alive.
Plant Now: Hellebores
July 29, 2012 by Leave a Comment
Plant for a spring fling
May 13, 2012 by Leave a Comment
I haven’t visited one of my favourite blogs, Saipua, for a while, but every time I go there it’s love at first site. How could you not love Sarah’s beautifully designed floral arrangements? Showing here is a profusion of spring blooms, and if you time your planting right, you can be cutting these lovely flowers from your garden in spring too. That means planting now. Last chance this month to plant anemones (the main ingredient here) and tulips, although you can, of course, buy these plants when in flower in spring (as early as winter for anemones).
Visit Saipua to see more lovely flowers and arrangements.
Dogwood and trilliums a lovely spring treat
November 6, 2011 by Leave a Comment
Flowering dogwood (cornus) and trilliums aren’t your typical cut flowers but they do look great in the vase if you can get them to last. Trilliums in particular have short stems that easily wilt after picking. McKenzie Powell managed to keep them looking fab in this lovely bouquet (middle photo), with its handful of spring blooms, including burgundy-blushed hellebores and thryptomene.
Trilliums are woodland plants that sport an anatomy of threes: three leaves, three sepals and three petals. They even come in three colours (or various shades of them): white, purple or deep red.
Dogwood (top photo, from Dreamy Whites) have white, pink, soft red or yellow blooms, and with autumn comes a brilliant show of reddish-purple foliage. They’re deciduous plants and, like trilliums, are frost hardy.
Grape hyacinths and blue periwinkle (vinca) are also spring-flowering (bottom photo, from McKenzie), and don’t they look divine in the vase too, particularly against the lovely deep green foliage. Both these plants grow in sun or part shade, and both are low-growing and spreading.
Plant Now: Hellebores
August 21, 2011 by Leave a Comment
My hellebores are in full bloom, and you’ll find them at garden centres now too. Now’s a very good time to buy them if you didn’t do so earlier in the year, because you can see just what you’re getting. The flowers are the shy and retiring type, usually bowing their pretty heads, but they’re gorgeous – some deep burgundy, some white or pink, some green or with freckles. All are lovely, and they have very attractive foliage too. These two beautiful floral designs were crafted by the ever-talented Amy Merrick. The top design shows freckled hellebores with white flowering dogwood (cornus). The second bouquet has divinely dark-coloured hellebores accompanied by ranunculi.
