Hellebore blooms come in variety of colours including green, white, yellow, red, black, and many variations of pink and purple.  Double blooms or single, spotted or freckle-free, the best way to show off the flowers is to float them in a bowl of water.

In the garden the flower heads hang upside-down where their true beauty cannot be completely appreciated.

To propagate, divide the clumps after flowering, in early spring or late summer.  Hellebores can be grown from seed and will self-seed but do not come true to type.  With so much variety out there it’s quite fun to grow your own seedlings be surprised at what will pop up.

More information on Hellebores can be found at Hellebores.org.

For 2012 I will be featuring a different plant of the 15th of each month for Garden Blogger’s Bloom Day.  I have done more than a year of posting for #GBBD and as it’s not greatly different than in previous year’s at the same time it will allow me to show off some great blooms and favourite plants.

There are some really fascinating winter blooming plants that I have seen, like witch hazel ‘Diane‘ and white forsythia, but I wasn’t familiar with this one.  Turns out these aren’t the blooms at all but the fruit that has set seed. Regardless, the show was splendid and completely stood out in a sea of holiday green and red.

Here is some more info on it from Wikipedia:

“Euonymus europaeus grows to 3 to 6 m tall, rarely up to 10 m, with a stem up to 20 cm diameter. The leaves are opposite, and are lanceolate to elliptical, 3 to 8 cm long and 1-3 cm broad, with a finely serrated edge. In autumn they often show a beautiful bright red colour.

The hermaphrodite flowers are produced in late spring and are insect-pollinated; they are rather inconspicuous, small, yellowish green and grow in cymes of 3-8 together. The capsular fruit ripens in autumn, and is red to purple or pink in colour and approximately 1 to 1.5 cm wide. When ripe, the four lobes split open to reveal the orange seeds.

The fruit is poisonous, containing amongst other substances, the alkaloids theobromine and caffeine, as well as an extremely bitter terpene. Poisonings are more common in young children, who are enticed by the brightly-coloured fruits. Ingestion can result in liver and kidney damage and even death.”