Scottish Rock Garden Club Forum
General Subjects => Plants Wanted Or For Exchange => Topic started by: PeterClegg on July 27, 2014, 12:47:40 PM
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Does anyone out there know of any nursery or grower in the UK or Europe with good coloured yellow hellebores that do not die or get diseased every season , something that will survive a typical British winter and Spring without any problems , many thanks in advance .
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Two come to my mind immediately - Macplants in Pencaitland, East Lothian
www. macplants.co.uk
and Ashwoods in Kingswinford - West Midlands
www.ashwoodnurseries.com (http://www.ashwoodnurseries.com)
Both of these nurserie s are listed in the SRGC links pages (http://www.srgc.net/forum/index.php?action=links (http://www.srgc.net/forum/index.php?action=links) or via the button third right at the top of each forum page) - contacting some of the others listed there might be a good dea too.
I expect other members will have more good suggestions too. :)
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Thanks Maggi for the macplants info ,Ashwoods yellows look very good but have only managed to keep one Ashwoods yellow alive for more than a year so will hopefully find a completely different strain to add to my hybridisng stock plants .
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I've had a Harvington double yellow for around five years?
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From Barnhaven in France I have grown seed of what turned out to be very good yellows and after 5 years flowering they are still going strong. In my opinion, seedlings are better than divisions for thinks like hellebores, not necessarily true, but of stronger constitution. You could also try the Trichoderma fungus products with your hellebores at planting time. There is much information on the subject here on the Forum.
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We've always found the yellows (and black) hellebores less persistant in the garden but got some nice plants a couple of years ago from Hertfordshire Hellebores (www.herts-hellebore.co.uk (http://www.herts-hellebore.co.uk)). Probably less plants are grown and hybridised in the garden now than in the way that Helen Ballard, Elizabeth Strangman and Eric Smith and Jim Archibald worked with them, which would have selected out for better adaptation to garden conditions (but neither did they develop yellows as striking as you see today). The yellowy-green species H. odorus does really well with us so maybe revisiting some of the original crossing between species would be worthwhile? Or using this to cross with some of the good yellows today?
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The ashwood yellows really are stunning but I agree that they are a bit miffy and not the longest lived plants.
I tried to get round this a few years ago by planting out some open pollinated seedlings from them in several locations round the garden.
The pure yellows all have paleish leaves that are easily selcted for whilst still young.
I now have several decent yellows flowering in different places.
David