Hellebore and Narcissus to Dream of

I certainly don’t dream of hellebores but if I did it would something like Harvington Double Purple Speckled. Do you know, looking at the photograph now it is almost perfect and although all the blooms failed to front up, this one turned its face directly to the camera. I mentioned Twelve Nuns Nursery yesterday and this is one of their introductions.

Harvington Double Yellow Speckled

Whilst photographing the hellebore I nearly trod on Narcissus ‘Mitzy’. That would have been a nightmare, continuing the dream imagery. I only have two of the bulbs …. though great ambitions. It doesn’t quite show in the photograph but ‘Mitzy’ has the longest, thinnest nose of a Pinocchio telling the most outrageous porkies. It is a tad taller than ‘The Englander’ featured yesterday, the corona a similar size if stretched out in a truly attractive manner. A distinctive miniature from that most prolific of breeders, Alec Gray, in 1965. Some of my favourite daffodils were hybridised by Alec.

Narcissus ‘Mitzy’

I thought I’d lost ‘Trena’, drowned in our largest sink garden but there she was this afternoon, pictured after a sudden shower. I’m going to move her because she hasn’t thrived and although this is not a rare variety – she goes back to 1971 and has been awarded the cherished AGM from the equally cherished RHS – I hate to lose plants. Half as big again as ‘The Englander’, the bulb was bred by the late New Zealand breeder, Mavis Verry.

Narcissus ‘Trena’