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Old 13-11-2006, 10:56 AM posted to rec.gardens
[email protected] mdhjwh@iprimus.com.au is offline
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First recorded activity by GardenBanter: Oct 2006
Posts: 7
Default Moving a Hellebore


madgardener wrote:
monkeyboy wrote:
Hiya,

This is my first post so please be gentle!! I have a Hellebore in the
garden but would like to move it to another place, have you got any
tips ? I.e. is now a good time of the year to do it ? Should i prune it
a bit first ? Any help appreciated...


ok, monkey boy, I'll be very gentle. First thing, what zone are you in
and what's fall like right now? Hellebore start making their baby leaves
and the older ones are protective of them, and around Christmas time
they start budding up. You can move Hellebore right now, to a
semi-shady spot, with LOTS of humus. NO PRUNING. none, the older leaves
protect the newer growth. Prune the older leaves after the newer leaves
and flowers are done and the flowers are setting seed.....(you can also
prick out baby seedlings and transplant them easy g what color is the
Hellebore? I hope this helps. Dig it deeply and it won't know it's
been moved. No dividing unless it's a huge old plant........fall is
better, but if your ground is workable, dig around the whole plant, and
deeply, about a foot will do, and the spade should just lift it out in
one clump if you've dug completely around it. An old plastic bag that
top soil or leaf bag would be great to put the plant and rootball onto,
that way you won't disturb the soil and roots too much, and oh, yeah,
have the hole you're moving it into dug, so it's a matter of dig up, put
onto the plastic tarp thing (yeah, I've even used an old
sheet.........burlap is too hard to come by.lol, and there are plenty of
empty bags of soil to use for other things) and pick it up and slide it
into the hole waiting for the new occupant. Good luck with it, water it
well if there's not much chance of freezing, if there is, wait until you
can give it a deep drink, and mulch it with leaves and leave it alone
and let Mom's Nature water it. let us know how it does, ok?
madgardener, up on the ridge, back in Fairy Holler, overlooking English
Mountain in Eastern Tennessee where there are new Hellebore babies to be
carefully moved later on to new locations.............zone 7, Sunset zone 36


Fascinating aspects of botanical behavior are the things plants get up
to when they haven't read the references. I'm not dismissing any of the
above advice but feel the need to relate how this species behaves here
in central North Tasmania. My hellobores behave like weeds. Every
spring thousands of seedlings pop up under the old plants, I dig em up
with little delicacy and drop them down in whatever semi shady space I
can find and by the following year I've got another patch. They a get
mid winter application of horse manure (not aged) after the first year
and thats it.
We have frosts here for weeks on end and nights get down to -7 C but
the soil only freezes down to 1/4 inch at most. The soil is a fertile
basaltic loam that's well supplied with trace elements. Opium poppies
also thrive in this region being its major commercial crop.