Helibores, flowers in bloom.

Posted on February 28, 2024February 28, 2024 Posted in Memories, UncategorizedTagged Esther Chilton, Flowers in bloom, Helibores, Life, Memory, Spring, Writing challengeLeave a comment

A helibore at Rode Hall.

I’ve just written a post about flowers in bloom on Esther Chiltons blog:

I visited Rode Hall in Staffordshire this weekend to see flowers in bloom. It was the annual Snowdrop Walk. It’s about a mile of paths around gardens and woods and along to a lake where thousands of Snowdrops of various species are in flower at this time of year.

We had to book a time slot to get a parking space because the ground is saturated after a very wet winter and there would not be enough space in the car park otherwise.

My friend and I had a lovely walk around the grounds. We were a bit disappointed because a lot of the snowdrops have already gone over (finished flowering), but there were other flowers in bloom including daffodils, helibores, cyclamen, camelia, and other flowers and shrubs. Flowers are blooming and Spring is on its way!

Spring Helibores

Posted on March 4, 2023March 5, 2023 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Beauty, Colours, Gardening, Helibores, Leaves, Life, Nature, Overlooked, Plants, seasonal, Spring, subtleLeave a comment

I think of daffodils and crocuses at this time of year, or snowdrops and later tulips. But an often overlooked plant is the Helibore. The flowers tend to droop their faces towards the ground and they have larder five lobed leaves. There colours can be a mottled grey green, white with green splotches or a greyish pink. This is a manipulated image to show how interesting they can be. Lift up a flower and be captivated by its hidden subtle beauty.

Easter egg photo

Posted on April 13, 2020April 13, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Art apps, Easter, Easter egg, Experiment, Flipped, Garden, Helibores, Layout app, Multiple images, Photo, PlantLeave a comment

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My friend made a beautiful picture of some tree branches, she mirrored them (flipped one side to mirror the other) then somehow surrounded the image with a black egg shape which was fuzzy at the edges. It’s beautiful and complicated.

I asked if I could use the idea. But didn’t want to copy. She said yes. So I put two photos of helibores through layout, an app where you can add different pictures together. I had to crop the image in my editing app, I then opened it in another sketching one. I drew an elipse round one side of the image, and freehand filled the background in with black. I used a spray tool so the edges were softened. I made sure to narrow the top half to give it more of an egg shape. Finally I cropped the image so that only half an egg shape was in the image. I went back to layout and duplicated the image. Then I flipped one side over so that there was finally an Easter egg shape on a black background. I don’t know how my friend did hers, but I respect the effort she must have put into it, and I thought I would describe what I had done in case anyone else wants to have a go.

Spring garden

Posted on April 3, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Daffodils, Dicentra, Flowers, Garden, Helibores, Muscari, Primroses, Pruning, Pulmonaria, seasons, Spring, Spring Garden, Spring plantsLeave a comment

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Various views of our spring Garden, top view is flowers, including Daffodils, Muscari Hyacinths, Primroses, Bleeding Hearts (Dicentra), Helibores, Pulmonaria, and Celandine. The bottom photo shows the Pear tree propped up with some wood, the weight of the pears pulled it over last year, Cyclamen in a pot, the path to the summerhouse, with some railway track and our back yard, waiting to be tidied up.

I did a bit of pruning today. I’ve had so little exercise these last few weeks that I felt very wobbly when I’d finished.

Helibores

Posted on March 31, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Environment, Flowers, Garden, Helibores, Life, Plants, SpringLeave a comment

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Another plant I love in the spring are Helibores. The flowers range from bright white, pale green, pink and green and deeper pink. Sometimes the flowers are upright and you can get double species, but mainly their flower heads droop down and you need to lift up the flower to see its true beauty. There are sometimes dappled patterns and flecks of darker colours. The centre of the flower is quite prominent, backed by a slightly darker centre.

The leaves are deep green and shiny, sometimes five lobed. The borders are sometimes slightly serrated. I don’t know all the types of Hellibores there are but if you want an unusual plant that flowers early in the year and keeps flowering into April then they are worth getting. They offer some food for early insects. If you like your tulips and daffodils you could also try these. They are easy to keep and I grow mine with pulmonaria which come up a little bit later.

Look again

Posted on February 19, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Art, Cheshire, Chimney, Culvert, Cupola, Garden, Grey, Handle, Helibores, Light, Photographs, Rode hall, Sky, Smoke, StaffordshireLeave a comment

When you visit somewhere it’s always interesting to look at odd little views, like the cupola seen through a broken window of a derelict green house, or mirrors placed under helibores so you can see their open flowers that usually hang down and hide their beauty. Smoke coming out if the little gift shop chimney (the shop had a warm wood fire burning in the hearth) a picture of a small pool. The fountain was not running. A sculpture of a jumping fish, a grey handle on a grey background. Light through the clouds and a curved turf covered roof to some sort of culvert.

Why not look at those odd sights and take a picture, they may not make a perdect composition but they may spark some thought.

Mallaband-Brown

Tag: Helibores