Friday, December 21, 2007


The Christmas Rose is not a rose at all but a Helleborus niger. It blooms about now but it gets unsightly black spots in our garden so we don't grow it. Perhaps this hellebore does not like our rain. Rosemary prefers the Heleborus argutifolious which flowers later in the winter.

My garden has been put to bed and I try not to look at the last of my decaying perennials and hostas disappear into the ground. Some of them are confused with our warmish weather and I would believe have adapted and become evergreen. An example is my handsome



Hypericum androsaemum 'Albury Purple' (right) which looks great and will remain like that unless we have a heavy snowfall which would break off the brittle stems.

But I have my very own Christmas Rose(s), if a bit worse for wear. They managed to open today in my winter garden. The roses are both English Roses bred by Shropshire rose grower David Austin. The pink one is Rosa 'St Swithun' and the white Rosa 'Fair Bianca'.