After enduring the ravages of flooding, heat, drought and unusually cold temperatures (not to mention deer and rabbits), I swear I can hear my plants muttering, "What did we do to deserve this!?" 'It's so sad': B.C. gardeners grieve as they take stock of cold snap's toll (cheknews.ca)
Your hellebore is coming into bloom now as per usual. With the flattening of the leaves by snow not being abnormal either; what to be concerned about in this instance is the amount of blackening of the leaflets that has developed. This is a disease problem that can spoil hellebores.
Some hellebores, like the one to the left, are doing well. I am concerned about the blackening leaves and know I should have removed them by now. But the poor plant in my first post will not be blooming this year as all the buds froze and rotted after the first big freeze a few weeks ago (~minus 11).
Margot, I've had a great amount of die-back of the Hellebore buds and flowers as a result of the mid-January freeze and snow. The later blooming ones are putting up new flowers and the early flowering ones such as 'Mahogany Snow' have lost all their flowers and buds but they're putting out new leaf growth, so hopefully they'll have enough time to restore the plant and have a fresh start on blooming again come late December! Later flowering ones like 'Golden Lotus' weren't far enough along in bud development to be affected by the freeze and blooming pretty well, no pictures unfortunately, you'll have to take my word for it... I see in the first picture you have a Cyclamen, my hederifolium have taken a real kicking, most of the leaves have died and I'm not sure the scant number of leaves left will be sufficient to keep the tuber alive. Thank goodness I kept back some seedlings from last year which were in a protected area and have since been planted out to hopefully establish themselves in other areas of the yard.
Winter blooming plants often have an ability to bloom on later emerging buds after the first set (or even sets) are frosted. Geophytes tend to be able to come back in a following year when decapitated. In fact, some kinds like lilies or orchids may even skip one or more years on their own. And Neapolitan cyclamen produces large tubers that may have a lot of energy stored up.
'Geophyte' - new word for me. Without doubt, geophytes are coming back this year but with noticeably fewer flowers among the hellebores, daffodils and crocuses. (I cannot bring myself to type 'croci'.) Another unappreciated geophyte that does very well in my garden is Cyclamen hederifolium . . . probably other species too that have not yet been introduced. They germinate everywhere thanks the thatching ants. Hard as it is to refrain from buying new plants, I think that my best strategy going forward is to plant more of the species that have proven themselves to do well with the existing conditions in this evermore dry, shallow-soiled garden of mine.
You remind me of the first plant course I ever took, 50 years ago at a very beautiful (house) plant store in Vancouver on Arbutus at 10th or 11th. Margaret Coxon told us "Figure out what you can grow well, and grow lots of it".
