Hi Maddie :-)

I am just getting my own new garden established as well but I did bring with me several potted hellebores that are budding up nicely, including at least one black and a double. I'll be sure to save some seeds for you but of course, no guarantee on the coloring of the offspring. I had lots of first and second year seedlings in my old garden, but no way now to go back and rescue any.

I'll be in touch.

you know who :-)

Maddie, I have a few dark purple seeds (open pollinated so no guarantees offered :)) but for best results they should have been sown by now - I'd rather share fresh seed than older dry stored and that means June or July for me, a little earlier for the green flowered h. foetidus. My garden is much too wet to think about lifting self sown seedlings and I have none in pots this season. I'm making a note of your email address - if that changes between now and summer let us know.

You can likely still get excellent moist packed seed from Elizabeth Town - they arrive with the first warm moist period completed, ready to sow and place seed pots outside in your zone to let mother nature complete the process. My own order should be arriving any day, my annual winter gift to myself :)

Here is a link that might be useful: Elizabeth Town Hellebores

WOW, Thanks gardengal! (and mortz8) for seeds. Gardengal, and "mortz" I don't care what color the seeds will produce. My saddest realization was leaving my huge individual hunks of hellebore behind with someone who didn't even WANT Hellebore and who probably discarded them.....oh well, hopefully they've pulled themselves into the ditch where she threw HERS and have surprised and won her over. I've forgiven and moved on with that chapter. Old book. I had some seedlings of crosses that were promising to be interesting. So all seeds and even little seedlings if possibly shipped come true spring would be seriously appreciated. I have the patience and fortitude to wait and see who shows their colors. wow, a black one? And a double? I'll see what Elizabeth Town Hellebore offers and see if I can scrape up change for a package of seeds. As for changing living addresses, unless we hit the Tennessee lottery (which would mean celebrations,a family gathering of epic proportions, and then going to England for a month, and seriously relocating to another spot in the USA more to our consideration and building our own little cottage with at least five acres near a good city but with enough trees and nature to satisfy both of us ) we're here until the end. My e-mail address has been consistent now for a few years. And now that we have high speed internet (and if things go wonky at the house, the city's library is three blocks to the northwest of our house)I am more than willing once you contact me through e-mail of giving you my snail mail addy. Now all I have to do is find the nearest supply of good garden soil (my former source besides my former compost, was at a little nursery and tack shop in Morristown, Tennessee in Eastern Tennessee by the name of Ramsey's who sold Garden Magic soil which was formerly Michigan Peat garden soil. A wonderful black blend of compost, a bit of sand and a trace of vermiculite, not enough to overly notice, but it was soft, loose and rich and you wanted to eat it with a spoon.......I have a few pots that I tipped out here that I'd planted things into and the differences between the pots of Garden magic and a few of my containers of the former older Faerie Holler showed richness in comparrison to this home's soil. BUT, (and it's a smiley faced but) here I have SOIL, not clay like I did in East Tennessee, and I've already got two established compost piles and a huge leaf and pine needle pile that I will mow and grind up with my mulching mower in a few days to reduce the size and compost it down quicker. (my neighbor gifted me with his gatherings one weekend that resulted in a pile that was six feet wide, twenty feet long and seven feet high!) he took me serious when I asked for all his remaining leaves. LOL
thanks friends! These seeds will be sown in two established beds of good soil, one at the base of an old willow oak (who's sisters are on either side, three more of impressive girth by my standards, and at least 50 or more feet high with a nice canopy and very healthy) and the other spot is a northern side of the front yard where I tapped into a very nice older bed that I've expanded and raised up and tucked what I hope are the only rhizomes of my perennial begonia into.
maddie gardening inside until I see signs of spring again (our temps have been colder than usual)

I can send you some babies when they start poking their heads up soon.
Just email me your address and I will be happy to send them, I have lots.
mwenger@charter.net