T&M's Queen Series hellebores

The Gardener's Companion catalogue, recently issued by Thompson & Morgan in the UK only, features the Queen Series of Helleborus x hybridus, They're featured on the cover, come in eight separate colours and are sold for #9.99 each, in a 7cm pot.

These Queen Series hellebores are basically improved versions of the seed strains that Elizaberth Strangman used to sell from Washfield Nursery before she retired. She sold the rights to T&M, and she tells me that she visits T&M a few times every spring to make selections, make crosses and generally advise. She is also still making new crosses in her new garden, she has some lovely veined doubles. Some of the Queen Series are produced by hand pollination using the same parents that Elizabeth herself used or her improved parental selections. Others, where the results are sufficiently uniform, are produced by rather less precisely intercrossing small groups of parental plants and collecting seed from all of them.

Clearly, the plants in each colour will not be absolutely identical, they're not clones after all, but Elizabeth's pioneering idea was to realise that hand pollinated seed strains could produce superb quality plants, true to colour and form, in numbers sufficient to actually meet the demand... unlike bulking up clonal cultivars by division (referred to recently on this list). They are not absolutely identical, but they will be pretty uniform and all good; 'Ice Queen', for example, should all be pure white, rounded in shape and prolific though they will vary slightly.

You can see these hellebores online at http://www.thompson-morgan.com/plants/uk/list_h_1.html

Seed is not available, and selfing individual plants will not necessarily result in offspring as good or as consistent. But it is very welcome to see Elizabeth's seed strains reaching a wider market.

The catalogue also includes a wide range of enticing, and expensive, other perennials.

Graham Rice

http://GrahamRice.com

Also posted to the Hellebore list and the Hybridising list.

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