It looks lovely!

Hi Gardengal,

Are you allowed to say which retail center you're at? Just curious, I could really use some landscaping help. Also, I just bought an Ivory Prince over the weekend, a little pricey but so beautiful I couldn't resist! I think I need a few more, hee hee.

MG

These are amazing! My son just got 2 of them, and I think we need more!! He has a good eye for only being 10. They would look great planted in front of other larger Hellebores in drifts!

I just picked up this baby today! It's beautiful, but I have my doubts as to its disease resistance. We'll see. There were about 15 plants at my local nursery, and I had to really pick through them to find one with flawless foliage. The leaves are much bluer than the photo in the previous posting. And I like the flower color better in person, too. I'll see if I can snap a photo of mine tomorrow.

Doris, hellebores are notorious for being difficult plants to maintain in a nursery can - the potting soil is typically too rich and moisture retentive and botrytis and leaf spot are far more prevalent in a nursery setting than when the plants are established in the ground.

The parentage is strong on this plant (niger and thibetanus) and I think it should be less problematic for us in the PNW than the x hybridus forms.

It is certainly beautiful. I guess H. x nigercors is still sufficiently rare in the US so that people can continue to name them whatever they like. 'Ivory Prince'...how tantalizing. I'll call it H. x nigercors.

Well, that's good news, Gardengal! It sure looks like it has the potential to be a beautiful plant.

I am thinking it looks more like x ballardiae, with the pinkish buds. My x nigercors has green buds and flowers without the flush of pink and completely green leaves. I am posting it in the gallery now.

I agree Carol. I was going by the suggestion that it was argutifolius x niger, but it would seem much easier to get that appearance from lividus compared with argutifolius. Anyway, thanks for the photo. It is a beautiful plant whatever its name and provenance.

Here's the pot of 'Ivory Prince' that I purchased. It really is a beautiful Hellebore.

And the back side of the flower.

I work in a large Puget Sound area garden center that had 'Ivory Prince.' We got ~16 plants. It is extremely hard to get, and is quite striking. The growers must have really underestimated it's attractiveness. Doris's pictures are pretty, but the real thing is awe inspiring. I was luck to get one, and so far it seems pretty happy.

It has a very restricted release, as only one local vendor is offering it this season, acting almost as a broker for the developer. However, they had plenty of plants available - I had no trouble bringing in multiple shipments for my nursery and my contacts at other local nurseries report the same. Sales have been very strong, so I'd suspect it will have a much wider release next season.

(PS - tell your buyer to get on the stick - preorders help!!)

He Gardengal 48 Lovely "Ivory Prince"
Not unlike my "Pink Beauty"
Visit www.vulcanplants.nl.
Geedo.

Geedo , your link does not work.

Pam,
I'd be very dubious about your argutifolius/niger parentage here, this has definately got the look of lividus about it and I would suspect it being a good form of the nigerliv cross or H ballardiae as it should be known. I fail to see how plant breeder rights can be claimed over this.

The parentage you mention, niger and argutifolius(H. corsicus) 'nigercors' has a much greener tint about it...white/applewhite fading to green. Nigercors is by far the more common cross and (IMO)is a better garden plant as it will take full sun and remains heavily floriferous from now through the end of April. I'll be interested to see how hardy and robust your Ivory Prince is. My experience of both this and the niger sternii cross H.ericsmithii(nigerstern), is that they need a bit more cosseting than hybridus or nigercors. Of course there are pink flush variants of niger about though they are pretty rare in the trade butI'll stick with lividus blood for this.

All beautiful plants by the way and everyone should try the crosses themselves as the results are variable, especially with the sternii cross as sternii has lots of variants itself.

Beware, as once you cross this line you're heading down the serious addiction route!! Also check out some of the species; atrorubens, purpurascens, multifidus, dumertorum, cyclophyllus, for very simple beauty and fantastic foliage.

Cheers Greenmanplants

I posted a photo of ballardiae on the Gallery. The pedicels on my plant are not nearly as long as those on 'Ivory Prince'. I might be able to take a better photo tomorrow or Wednesday.

John, I was not the one that mentioned a nigercors in relation to this plant. I was told it was a niger x thibetanus cross, but I am not that familiar with hellebore genetics to determine the accuracy of this. The foliage reminds me very much of xsternii and it looks more to me like a nigerstern than anything else I've seen. The plant, while rather compact in stature, appears to be very robust in growth - mine is putting out copius new growth after only a month or so in the ground.

A lot of the species are somewhat more difficult to obtain over here "across the pond". I've got some cyclophyllus coming into the nursery this week but I'd really like to get my hands on some multifidus - the only place I've seen them available is at Heronswood. And my favorite hellebore bar none is xsternii 'Blackthorn Strain' - an outstanding plant in my garden year round, in or out of flower.

Interestingly enough, Blackthorn nursery is 20 minutes from where I live. Robin and Sue White have been breeding Hellebores there since the 70s. One of the best nurseries in the country, hundreds of gems there, hellebores being but one page out of 32 in their catalog.

I think if you look at Carol's picture of x ballardii(H.niger X H.lividis) in the gallery you'll see the similarity with 'Ivory Prince'. H. x ericsmithii(nigristern) is similar being a cross between H.niger and H. X sternii which is itself a cross between H.argutifolius and H.lividis. There's quite a bit of natural variation in all of these, especially sternii. This gives scope for 20 varied seedlings from one pod, let alone from 100 repeats of the same cross. Most of these give very good plants and my point is if you like 'Ivory Prince' (or 'Sunmarble' in another of the chains in this forum) then you should start looking for the good varieties of these parents to try the crosses yourselves. Once you start to look you will find ways to acquire the specie plants or the seeds of the specie plants even if they are a bit scarse, try getting some of Will McLewin's seed, there is a website and mail order that I have seen somewhere. Perhaps someone can post it in this chain.

Cheers Greenmanplants

Here's the link, they're available through Jim and Jenny Archibald.

Here is a link that might be useful: Will McLewin Hellebore seeds

Ahhh, John - you over-estimate both my time and dedication to developing 'new' hellebores. If it doean't come out of a nursery pot or seed itself, I don't grow it. I barely have time to maintain the plants I do grow, let alone attempt to breed new ones :-))

BTW, I've met Will McLewin - he has been to Heronswood a number of times to lecture at their Hellebore Open. He is a fascinating speaker and an extremely knowledgeable hellebore breeder and a number of the varieties offered by Heronswood have been derived from his seed strains.

FWIW, being a nursery buyer does have its advantages - I do have access to a lot of plants that may not be readily available to the general public. But breeding them myself or even starting them from seeed is not on my agenda.

Hi Carol 123,
Just after opening www.vulcan.nl
Try again it dos work.
Regards,Geedo

He Carol 123
Sorry my mistake,
www,vulcanplants.nl,
Geedo