hellebores

A few photos

My current faves in the garden are the little patch of snakes head fritillary and the hellebores at the front of the back border, still going strong.  I took my DSLR and 50mm lens out in the evening sunshine tonight and managed to get a few shots of these which I’m really pleased with.

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I think I’ve finally figured out how to get the best from this prime lens!  For photography fans – I stopped it down to f1.8 for this effect – the flower pops right out.

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But this shot is my photo of the day…

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…and it’s my current favourite spring flower in the garden – a delicate little hybrid of the purple fritillary and one of the few whites which are also there.  It looks like it’s made of tissue.

Mild March?

It’s March!

And when I walked out of the door this morning it was much milder than I expected  – about 6 or 7 degrees (which for my corner of the earth IS mild at this time of year!), prompting me to break out my New Spring Coat, which is lighter and brighter and it made me happy to wear it for the first time.   And then I got this…

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…so apparently winter is not done with us quite yet!

On the topic of frosty/mild mornings, a note about hellebores.  If you walk out on a frosty morning and find your hellebores looking rather floppy – don’t panic.  On very cold days, the stalks will bend low, flowers touching the ground, and they’ll look a bit sad.

sad hellebores 😦
happy hellebores 🙂

But when the temperatures rise again, they’ll perk back up and resume the usual position. When I first witnessed this, I was a bit alarmed and worried I’d somehow damaged them, even though apart from removing old black-spotted leaves I had pretty much left them to their own devices since last year.  Thankfully this is normal hellebore behaviour and, being very hardy plants, they should continue to grow quite happily through the rest of the frosts, right through to sunny spring.

So although I might suffer with tomorrow’s predicted severe temperature dip (the New Spring Coat will go back into the wardrobe for now), at least I know my hellebores will not!