"Des Higgins" wrote in message
news

"Sue" wrote in message
...

"Charlie Pridham" wrote

They are famous for not liking being moved, so like peonies will take
awhile to settle. Its why the nice ones are so expensive, splitting
clumps is not an options so most are f1 hybrid seedlings (i.e. seed
that gives a consistent outcome) which means hand pollination.

This is worth knowing since I'm about to plant some more. Most things in
my garden seem to shift home once or twice at the very least!

Do the posh hybrids set seed worth keeping at all? My father was
complaining the other day that he hadn't found any seedlings under the
ones he planted last year. Perhaps they germinate later?


We have 4 plants that grew from what appear to be seedlings from one
original plant that was on its own in a border. It took a few years for
any
seedlings to appear. The original plant was bought from a garden centre
and
had dark maroon mottled flowers. The seedlings were potted up and then we
moved house and took them with us. We now have two plants that look like
the parent, plus one with white flowers and one that is the same colour as
the parent but with odd shaped "petals". They are all worth having.
That
was quite a successful experiment as far as I am concerned. They were
also
very slow to get going, in keeping with earlier comments.

Des in Dublin

I am with Des, there is no such thing as bad hellebore! If you sow seed
fresh in summer as soon as ripe it will germinate between Christmas and News
years day, seedlings will reach flowering size in 3 years if potted on at
intervals

--
Charlie, gardening in Cornwall.
http://www.roselandhouse.co.uk
Holders of National Plant Collections of Clematis viticella (cvs) and
Lapageria rosea