Go to Hellebores!

Last Saturday, shocked and dispirited after reading the newspaper and watching the morning news, I found myself stumbling out the door for a walk in hopes of lifting my spirits.  Having spent the better part of the previous four weeks shuttling from a gray New York to a cold, rainy Chicago and back, I was so glad to be back in Georgetown, gladder still for the vernal sunshine, relatively warm temperatures, and promise of early spring flowers.

Helleborus orientalis

I was bound for the Old Stone House to see if the hellebores were blooming.   I was introduced to hellebores at Tudor Place back in the early 1990’s, and grew them in Connecticut for their beauty and deer resistance.   Hellebores can bloom as early as December, depending on the species.  They had yet to stir in January, however, the last time I’d gone to look and discovered them winter-battered and flattened from snow and ice.  The Lenten Roses, (helleborus orientalis) at the Old Stone House, dead leaves removed, are blooming in white and various shades of mauve now with remarkable beauty and are worth a trip for any flower-starved gardener.   

Another species grows beside them, helleborus foetidus, which is my favorite.  It was also in bloom, but there was only a single plant.  I love it’s greenish-blue leaves all year around, and its fabulous long lasting chartreuse flowers which look amazing when planted with spring bulbs of any color, and I like them best planted in masses.  They can be prolific self-sowers, which is good because they occasionally die out leaving their seedlings to soldier on.  I have never found them odiferous, like their name suggests (one of its common names, I hate to say, is dungwort – not kidding), but have heard that they can smell down right nasty if they are cut and brought indoors.  Hellebores of all kinds are perfect for an urban garden, especially planted near doors or windows so they can be easily seen in late winter.

Magnolia x soulangeana

The hellebores are planted near the M Street entrance of the Old Stone House, beneath a saucer magnolia, possibly Magnolia x soulangeana, a cross between magnolia denudata and magnolia lilliflora.  It is named after a former cavalry officer (Etienne Soulange-Bodin) who survived his military service in Napoleon’s army, and went on, in 1820, to create this cross, one of the more popular spring blooming hybrid trees in cultivation. I adore magnolias, and this one, like several others around town, was just about to burst open in a gaudy pink and white display, complementing the colors of the hellebores beneath it. 

Cornus mas

Spirits buoyed, (I am a simple soul), I walked back home, with a lighter heart noting with pleasure the various blooming bulbs (scillas, snowdrops, and crocus, etc.).  The real surprise, though, is on 33^rd  Street, where a dazzling Cornelian Cherry (cornus mas), stands in full yellow glorious bloom.  I don’t know whether it’s just more gorgeous in Zone 7 or works better as a specimen in a small garden, but this small shrubby tree just stands out screaming “Spring is upon us” like nothing else.  I have seen the Cornelian Cherry, which is a native of Central and Southern Europe and parts of Western Asia, in mass plantings in larger gardens in zones 5 and 6, and though lovely, this particular specimen beats them all.  They can grow up to 20 feet tall and have a fairly round shape, usually branching quite low if not pruned, with nice dark green foliage in summer, yawn-ish fall color, and somewhat interesting bark for winter interest.  It’s moment, though, is now, followed by good sized, but discrete red berries favored by birds and intrepid makers of jelly.

Witch-hazel (hamamelis)

A little further along the street is a small witch-hazel that is blooming on the north side of a house in pretty convincing shade.  It has been blooming for several weeks and I was delighted to see it blooming still, it’s delicate strappy petals looking crisp against their brick background.  Like the Cornelian Cherry, forsythia, and winter jasmine, winter-blooming witch hazels bloom before their leaves emerge.  I love this because the yellows of these plants stand out against the colors of the stems on which they bloom, dark in the case of the Cornelian Cherry and witch hazels, and greenish in the case of winter jasmine and forsythia, all of which are also blooming now.  Incidentally, if you are a rose gardener, you already know that it’s time to cut your roses back when the forsythia bursts into bloom.

I am on the road again now, and hate to miss this moment when spring ousts winter and the magnolias, cherry trees, dog woods (did I mention that the Cornelian Cherry is actually a dogwood?  I should have), and crab apples burst forth.  Who knows what will be out when I return?

The discipline of a small urban garden……

British gardeners at the recent RHS Spring Garden Show 

There are many endearing and unique aspects of British culture (the propensity to eat kidneys and black pudding for breakfast not among them), but to me nothing is more so than British gardeners at a spring garden show. 

The rooms at the Royal Horticultural Society’s spring show last month were awash with tweedy, rubber-booted Brits, ferociously focused on expertly and beautifully arranged spring flower displays and green walls, and vendors selling everything from potted bulbs and seed potatoes to tubular garden furniture and artificial grass.  (The artificial grass vendor had to be the owner of the Smart car  parked outside, entirely covered in faux-turf, right?).

I was there to meet my friend and former colleague, garden designer John Brookes, (www.denmans-garden.co.uk/jb-design.asp), who was giving thirty minute garden design consultations along with several other British designers.   When I caught up with him (after lusting over hepatica x schlteri,  primroses, iris reticulata,  and all kinds of delicious hellebores) he was busily helping a client sort out a garden design for a small townhouse garden. 

As I hovered discreetly nearby, John listened to his client’s description of his garden and what he wanted before drawing a design based on the man’s preferences.  Typical John, it was bold and clear without fuss, and he took pains to explain the importance of keeping things simple, a rule to which every owner of a small urban garden should adhere.   


And there I stood, the proud new owner of a small urban Georgetown garden that is in serious need of a complete makeover.


Remember that my last garden was in Connecticut, two acres of sun and shade, lawn and orchard, woods and terrace, perennials and shrubs (and the occasional herd of deer eating everything in sight, but you can’t have it all).   While I eventually became better disciplined (that word again) at designing first and planting second, I could still indulge my plant impulses and did.  Often.


The trick with a small garden is that you really can’t have everything.   There is no room for indulging plant impulses.  You have to pick and choose what you include in your garden based on site orientation, circumstances, needs, etc.   You learn that in Design 101.  Then you design the garden.  Only then, when all of that preparation and thinking and planning is finished, you get to pick the plants.  To me, this is like having to plan out, buy for, cook, eat dinner and then clean it all up, all before you eat dessert.   


The discipline, the discipline ….!


As spring lurks around the corner and we have these amazingly warm days, it’s time to start thinking about the garden makeover.  I am determined to be disciplined and live up to my training and years working with John, who is a committed designer first and plantsman second (this was, sometimes, a point of friction in our many years of working together!).  In coming installments I will share this journey on this blog.  I wonder where I put the 100-foot measuring tape?