Harbinger of Spring - Helleborus

Phonetically, the name may sounds like a "hell-of-a-bore-rose" but in reality, this is a very interesting plant and a joy to behold when they are in bloom, especially after many months of winter boredom. Even though the 5 petals strongly resemble the wild roses, and its common name being Lenten Rose or Christmas Rose, Helleborus is not at all a rose. They belonged to the family of Buttercup or Ranunculaceae, usually blooming in-sync with the snowdrops and the crocus.

This is another one of those easy care, very well behave plant and requires almost no maintenance. When given the right growing conditions, they will be there forever, slowly multiplying over the years. Some are very cold hardy and able to survive my freezing cold alpine winter climate. The leathery leaves remain evergreen during winter months, though sometimes can look a little bit savaged after getting buried under the snow blanket, and all the freeze and thaw, but that does not affect their ability to produce many beautiful blooms that made me smile even on grouchy grey and dull mornings.
There are so many attractive interesting colours being created by hybridizers.
Some are plain looking, others are with darker streaks of green, yummy creamy pink undertones, reddish brown, purplish spots and tinge, ....or simple plain white like this Helleborus Niger or Christmas rose below. In my garden, this white one is the first one to appear ahead of the other cultivars. This white is the most common one here. Sometimes during mild winter, they started blooming around Christmas or around that time. Unlike many flowers with true petals, the hellebore flowers are actually made of 5 sepals which do not fall off . They turn green and stay on the plant, holding on to the seeds pods and remain very decorative for months.

These are very short plants, a little over 12 inches tall, making it a perfect ground cover plants. The blooms faces outward with a tendency to nod as if very shy. I found them most suitable and effective for my upper slope garden as I could see the face of the nodding flowers by looking up from the patio without having to get down on my hands and knees to enjoy their beauty.

Harbinger of Spring - It's Electrifying!!

When weatherman said sleet over the weekend, I was disappointed. Wet soggy spring snow are very heavy and will definitly foul up lots of those lovely harbingers that are low growing plants.

Lo and behold!

Weather gods decided to send spring snow to other parts of the country.

Isn't that a tiny bit of blessing to be joyous about?

I'm certainly counting my blessings.

Though a bit cold, 1° celcius, partial cloudy and the wind chill factor made it even colder, I can't stay curled up late. The dog must go out, and its always urgent in the morning.

I tried to catch the light whenever the sun peeked out from behind the clouds, and took pictures of this lovely furry Pulsatilla. Long time ago, this flowering plant was called Anemone Pulsatilla, but now the taxonomist decided it should be called Pulsatilla Vulgaris. Don't know what made them change the name, but I think I like the old name much better.

After 30 minutes not moving much behind the camera, and waiting for the wind to kind of calm down a bit, my fingers turned numbed and I can't feel the camera button, ran into the house, put my hands in the toasty warm oven gloves and try to sip a warm ovomaltine while sifting through the pictures.

The wind was also extremely dry with charged atoms, that static electricity built up in my body similar to during the time in the depth of winter when the air in the house used to be very dry. Actually, I really shouldn't be complaining even though my hair is standing on its end. Pulsatilla Vulgaris Papageno having its hair standing on end.

Everything I touched became an electrifying experience. The dog jumped nervously when I tried to fix his leash. The camera goes a bit haywire when I switched it on. A simple pecking kiss to my husband and we both were electrified.



When the clouds moved away, and the sun shine brightly....
.......there, you can see my smiles are reflected right here in that fully opened flowers.

Ooinunofuguri - Dog's Scrotum Major

Few days after I published Seeing Heaven in Wild Flowers http://rosesarerae.blogspot.com/2009/03/seeing-heaven-in-wild-flowers.html

Maki wrote me an e-mail;

"Hi Rae,
That tiny blue flower is flowering in my garden too. In Japan, it is called Ooinunofuguri.
It means dog's scrotum major !! haha. I've no idea who gave such strange name to this cute weed or why??"

Thank you for sharing this with me Maki. What a name! I burst into long train of giggles when I read your lines.....was a good mail to start the day. The people who gave this plant such a name like this, surely have got a good sense of humour.

When I think again about it, that name actually fits well to the tough surviving qualities of this plant. They really can take all kinds of abuse. This is the kind of weed which will not shrivelled and die from heavy foot traffic and don’t even burn and turn brown when dogs peed on them.

Luckily it is a low ground hugging weed and not invasive bushy type, or otherwise would be a nightmare to get rid off from cultivated areas of the garden.

If that blue weed wild flower belonged to the dog, here's another one blooming at this time of year in the garden, commonly known as Dog’s tooth or Erythronium Revolutum





There are many varieties of Dog's tooth and this one is called White Beauty.
Now I wonder if there are other wild flowers called dog’s droppings, which I’ve yet to discover…..