Here's my plant of the new hybrid between Helleborus niger and Helleborus x hybridus - 'Walberton's Rosemary'. I posted about it in August and again in October over on my Royal Horticultural Society New Plants blog. The plant is growing in a friend's garden "somewhere in England". This is her picture showing a very large flower with plenty of buds still to come... It's been blooming since before Christmas.
Anyone with experience of growing any of the (admittedly rather few hybrids) between Helleborus niger and Helleborus x hybridus please post a comment here and tell us all about how the plants are doing or email me off list. Thanks - I'm working on an article about them.
Is this really a hybrid? Doesn't look like it to me. Looks like some nursery trying to pull a scam.
Posted by: Dermot | March 04, 2009 at 10:58 AM
Dermot - if you check the October link in the post above that will take you to a page that explains why this plant is definitely a hybrid.
Posted by: Graham Rice | March 04, 2009 at 12:14 PM
I'm growing H. 'Snow White', a hybrid of similar lineage distributed via tissue culture by a Japanese company. So far it's growing well, fairly floriferous (probably due to its sterility), but not much better than several clones of niger that I grow or a few really good white H. x hybridus plants in the garden. The blooms do face out a bit more than the straight hybridus, which may be a selling point, but they're not any larger, and are definitely much less spectacular than H. niger 'Potter's Wheel'. Maybe as the plant gets larger, the flowers will as well.
Posted by: Jeff | March 10, 2009 at 03:01 PM
Thanks Jeff, that's very interesting. I see you garden in coastal Virginia - when did 'Snow White' start to flower?
Posted by: Graham Rice | March 11, 2009 at 06:26 AM
Hi Graham - it started in mid-January and is still putting out flowers, so it's pretty concurrent with the rest of the H. x hybridus here. In fact, if I hadn't bought it from a reputable source (Plant Delights in NC), I probably would think it was just another white hybridus.
By the way - your book was the one that initially sparked my interest in these plants, and it's still one of my prize possessions (it resides in the bathroom every February/March, which is high praise, indeed!) I've been collecting and breeding them since 1992. I think you and Elizabeth Strangman deserve a huge amount of credit for popularizing them and encouraging others to make them available in such an amazing range. When I got my first ones you had a choice - muddy purple, or greenish-white with spots.
Posted by: Jeff Joyner | March 11, 2009 at 11:36 AM
Jef... I'm so glad our book was such an inspiration - hellebores have come a long way since then. And your comments about 'Snow White' echo some others I've heard though both this and 'Walberton's Rosemary' seem to be very prolific.
Posted by: Graham Rice | March 12, 2009 at 06:26 AM