A JANUARY GIFT

There are buds and blooms on the Helleborus plants in my yard. Though I start looking in late December, the Helleborus’ bloom cycle doesn’t  begin most years until mid-January, weeks before the threat of bad weather has passed. Some of our biggest snows in this part of the Piedmont have occurred in March. Weather records show big, March snows fell three Wednesdays in a row in 1960, and patches of it were still on the ground in shady spots in early April.

But Helleborus are stalwarts. They ignore annoyances such as ice, snow and freezing rain. No matter how cold it is their blooms are open like a trumpet call for the daffodils that will break ground and join a few weeks from now. I’ve seen daffodils earlier in other yards, but our microclimate on the bluffs above the Lawson’s Fork is slower. If I'm lucky, there will be a few weeks when the yellow blooms from my daffodils and the Helleborus rose and white flowers will intermingle in my flower beds.

I grow more attached to plants that have been passed on to me from the gardens of friends than the ones I purchase at nurseries because as long as I have them they give me a connection to whoever it was that allowed me to go digging in their flowerbeds. In this case, it was my friends Bill and Kristin Taylor of Glendale. This is about the 10th winter these Helleborus from the Taylors' garden have lifted by spirits on cold winter days, especially this year.  It's also about this time each year that I’m always glad Bill and Kristin were so generous. - GH