"" lenten rose: 2013

Wednesday, June 26, 2013

Summer Ground Cover and the Lenten Rose

Looking for a beautiful ground cover plant for your summer shade garden?  Here one, the hardy Lenten Rose.  After it blooms early early in the spring (with the daffodils), this early blooming shade perennial puts on new growth and morphs into a lush dark green ground cover .  Oh, and did I mention they are deer proof :-)


In the summer their leaves become tough and serrated and stay that way through the summer and into the early fall.  This is their no nonsense motherly design to protect their seeds that had fallen from their flowers at the end of their flower cycle.  In the late spring the flower cycle ends.  The seed pods of the flower mature and drop their seeds.  Then the flower stalks decompose the new summer ground cover foliage begins to grow.  By early summer the leaves are dark green and tough.  Mamma says, 'don't mess with my baby seeds!' :-)



If you have a few minutes and would like to learn more about this beautiful shade perennial, have a look at my web site.  Click on the Lenten Rose Almanac tab.  A few years ago I made a short video for every month of the year to chronicle the perennial cycle of this extraordinary plant.  The videos are pretty amateur but I had to do it......somebody had to do it.  Well anyway, enjoy and if you have any questions drop me a line at richard@LenenRose.com 









Monday, May 6, 2013

Lenten Roses - The Power of the Flower



LentenRose.com is located in the Piedmont of N.E. Georgia (USA).  That's important when you are comparing the perennial cycle of the Lenten Rose throughout the country.  Our flower cycle down here is just about over.  We have been harvesting seed for the last 3 weeks and starting this week we will be cutting the flower stalks out of the plant before we ship them out.  

Watch the April video of the Lenten Rose Almanac located on my web site.  There is a lot of good info regarding the flower cycle in that video.


It's not very pretty but it is part of the natural cycle of the plant.  Once the flower has dropped its seed you can go ahead and cut out the flower stalks.  They're just going to decompose anyway.  Might as well cut them out.


It's time now for the summer ground cover foliage to take center stage.  The broad, dark green, serrated leaves create beautiful shade cover and prickly protection for the fallen seed.  Later in the year, in the late fall, these leaves will start to lay over and decompose,  giving the seeds an additional layer of nutrients before they break ground in Jan/Feb.  


.....the power of the flower.




Monday, March 25, 2013

Lenten Roses Make Wonderful Cut Flowers



Lenten Roses make wonderful cut flowers but there are a few things you should know.  It is important to look at the flowers and try not to use them as cut flowers until after the flowers have been pollenated and the little seed pods have begun to form in the center of the flower.


You will notice that once the flower has been pollenated and the seed pods begin to grow, the flower stalk grows taller and more ridged.  The purpose here, in nature, is to allow the flower to grow tall enough to ensure that when the seeds ripen and are ready to fall from the flower, the flower will lean over so that the seeds will fall to the outside of the mother plant where the seeds will have the best chance of survival.


Lenten Roses to the people 


The picture below has 40 stems.  Each stem has 4-7 flowers........that's a lot of flowers :-)


Enjoy

Sunday, March 17, 2013

Is the Lenten Rose - Hellebore toxic?


Here is a reply I wrote responding to a question I've gotten more than once.  

Is the Lenten Rose toxic.  

First, as the great philosopher Aristotle once wrote: 'Define your terms'.  The Lenten Rose is the common name of our hero plant coming in a vast array of colors ranging from white to deep plum. Its' botanical name is Helleborus Orientalis and is indeed the mother of all the other hybrid hellebores that have been given names and guaranteed characteristics.  All falling under the Hellebore family of flowering shade perennials

Hi Sorin, 

Just a note about the toxicity of the plant. It is true, sort of. In my early Lenten Rose days (some 20 years ago) I looked into this pretty extensively. I found everything from folk lore to a paper written from a major University (it might have been from southern California.....just cant remember) 

Starting with the folk lore, it has been said that Alexander the Great died from an over dose of Hellebore and loosely translated Helleborus means 'food of the Beast'. In the days before modern medicine the hellebore tincture was a staple in every good Apothecary's bag. So indeed, there was a medicinal value to the hellebore plant and like many medicines, used improperly it can be toxic. I think the hellebore remedy was used to treat anxiety and stress related illness but its hard to find this type of homeopathic information in today's pharmacological world. Ugh.

The study I read talk about how several cattle from a mans herd had died. Their belly's were severely swollen. Investigation revealed that they had eaten hellebore plants.

Now from my own experience, and what may alert, even alarm, some people/gardeners is the affect the tough serrated leaves can have on your skin. After the flowers drop their seeds, the growth of new leaf foliage that follows, which is designed to lovingly protect and shade the fallen seed throughout the summer and early fall becomes very serrated and quite prickly. I know because during our seed harvest we spend a lot of time with our hands ruffling through our plants in search of mature seed and boy, if you are not wearing long sleeves your forearms will be dotted with little prickle marks - it's kind of creepy if you don't realize it's happening but there is no toxic affect. none.

So, I would not eat the plant but there is not, in any way, any danger in handling them.  Just look, I've grown 10's of thousands of them in earnest for over 20 years and I can tell you that as beautiful as they are,  I have never been tempted to eat one. :-) 

Hope this helps, thanks for finding me & 
Happy Gardening

Richard Giardini
Lenten Rose.com
706-215-1561