Carol in Hendersonville, North Carolina, is sharing some beauties from her winter garden with us today.
The winter garden is dearly appreciated. Honeybees emerge for the snowdrops (Galanthus spp., Zones 3–8) and hellebores (Helleborus hybrids, Zones 4–9). Cyclamen coum (Zones 5–9) is in flower. Cyclamen hederifolium (Zones 4–9) foliage makes an attractive ground cover for this time of year.
Flowers were collected from different hybrid hellebores and placed in a Limoges china dish so that the “faces” are easy to see and enjoy.
The outer petals of Galanthus ‘Cowhouse Green’ (technically called tepals) have a delicate green hue. This variety was found in the 1980s by Mark Brown in Buckinghamshire, England.
The foliage of Cyclamen hederifolium emerges in the fall and looks beautiful all winter before going dormant again in the spring. Every plant has slightly different patterns on the leaves.
‘Diggory’ is a snowdrop variety with beautiful showy petals that seem to almost puff up as the flowers open.
Leucojum vernum (Zones 4–8) looks similar to snowdrops and blooms nearly as early, but the blossoms have six broad petals tipped with green of the same size rather than the three large outer petals and three small inner ones of the snowdrops.
‘Pagoda’ has bold green spots on the outer petals, giving it a distinctive and unusual look.
‘Trumps’ is another variety with green markings and is much loved because it is very vigorous, rapidly clumping up and multiplying in the garden.
A flower of winter-blooming Cyclamen coum is mixed with some foliage of Cyclamen hederifolium, which blooms in the fall.
These “yellow” snowdrops are still mostly white, but they have yellowish ovaries and markings on the petals. A hellebore blooms behind them.
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Comments
SPRINGTIME !
Let's rock .
You have a really interesting and beautiful collection of flowers, I especially liked those unusual Leucojum vernum! And such a pretty way to display hellebores in a dish for a new twist on a bouquet!
me too!
So beautiful and unique! A true celebration of early spring bloomers. Thank you.
I enjoyed the pictures and the speciality clumps of snowdrops that add so much interest to your beautiful winter garden.
So very pretty - I'm now inspired to plant cyclamen in my wooded garden area here in the Charlotte area. The beautiful foliage alone is worth it. Your garden is lovely.
Very lovely spring flowering plants. Thanks so much for sharing your garden!
Thank you very much for the compliments! A young boy noticing my hellebore flowers asked me, " Are they sad?". I explained that the flowers were nodding but not sad! His remark encouraged me to take a sampling of varieties for the porcelain bowl. The snowdrops with yellow ovaries are ' Primrose Warburg'. One with the green blotches is ' Trymposter', I believe, but the label has faded.
Carol - thank you for sharing your lovely flowers and foliage!
It's lovely to have like-minded gardeners see what others are growing! I appreciate all of you!
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