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TOP LEFT AND TOP RIGHT
Pansy & Viola (Viola tricolor [wittrockiana]; Viola hybrida)
Pansies and violas are necessary in the winter in our garden. Realistically, reasonably priced plants help keep down our cost of living, because we need quite a few plants here – even though our planting beds are pretty small. (Once, I tried to grow them from seed, but they didn’t grow as fast as we hoped, and we couldn’t expect them to reach a reasonable size. Even in our poor garden, we don’t want to leave the flower beds empty as we wait to prepare perfect plants.) Our favourite pansies and violas are purple varieties .
BOTTOM LEFT
Christmas Rose (Helleborus foetidus)
It bloomed very nicely in 2002 (actually, they were calyxes, not flowers); however, we may have mistreated it somehow, and it became weak and finally died. If it was a common variety we’d see it in many places, and we wouldn’t feel so sad, but… it’s sad.
BOTTOM RIGHT
Christmas Rose (H. orientalis)
We think this is the most common type of Christmas rose. (Actually, this one is called a Lenten rose.) Christmas roses take a couple of years to bloom after sprouting, so this one bloomed this spring (2003) for the first time. Orientalis has many varieties of colours and patterns: they are always fun to see.
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ABOVE LEFT AND CENTRE
Pansy & Viola
ABOVE RIGHT
Primula
Primulas seem to be weak for dry conditions, so we almost killed many of them in the pot or hanging basket. We feel sorry to make their life shorter because of our mistreatment. But we like this white flower, and can’t resist buying them when we see them at the shop.
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ABOVE LEFT AND CENTRE
Pansy & Viola
ABOVE RIGHT
Christmas Rose (H. corsicus)
It bloomed this year (2003) for the first time. It was small when we bought in 2000 or 2001 and it has grown to about ten times its original size. Since we lost the H. foetidus, we feel happy this one is healthy, even though it pushes away the other plants around it. We love that these pretty, yellow-green, cup-shaped blossoms – which were originally from islands in the Mediterranean Sea – are here in our garden.
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ABOVE
Christmas Rose (H. niger)
I hear that this is the real ‘Christmas rose.’ It starts to bloom a little bit earlier than the other kinds. The flower petals (actually calyxes) are white; even when they dry out and turn green, they are still pretty. (I don’t know why I love the buttercup family of plants so much!) This is a plant that likes to be in half shade, so we’re glad to have it.
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ABOVE
Winter-blooming Plum [Japanese Flowering Apricot]
(Prunus mume)
It has grown little by little – this plant which was part of a New Year’s decoration we got from an acquaintance in 2002. It is still only about thirty centimetres tall, so it doesn’t bloom much yet; but we expect to see the blossoms every winter, even when it blooms out of season. Is it too hopeful to expect fruits, too?
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ABOVE
Christmas Rose (H. orientalis)
It bloomed in the first year we bought it. (Actually, it was a leftover plant at the shop so they reduced the price by half: that’s why we could afford to buy it.) The colour is a beautiful dark red. Before blooming, the green leaves and red also mix delicately and nicely – it’s very beautiful, like velvet.
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Date posted: 2004-08-10