The same, depending on the season's temperatures, also Helleborus niger has flowered here all through summer.

I wonder if it's permissible to send seedlings through the mail in a plastic baggie in a box?

All the hellebores started blooming in November/December. It's now July and they still haven't stopped opening more flowers! I'm pretty impressed, to say the least. The H. foetidus has grown from a 1-qt pot size in January to a 3x3' beastie that's battling for space with a 5-yr old dwarf rhododendron. I may have to cut it back before it really gets out of hand.

I wonder what it will do next year?? Crazy!

Also enjoyed your very interesting slideshow photos.

My interest goes to H.xhybridus .
Up to now I could not find a good explanation why some H.hybridus reflower .
Over here , a soft zone 8 , the hel's start flowering in December and go on until March . This must be the normal blooming period , but they may keep their flowers for a longer time .
Some plants flower ( make new buds ) out of this period .
I could not find information about this reblooming capacity as it is sometimes the case with other garden plants who are crosses between late and early bloomers or even sports ( ex Roses ) .
As I could observe H.hybr that rebloom in my garden ;
It are the plants with paler colored flowers that rebloom and they are greening , ( I have only a small number of darks ) ,
the WHY question popped up .

Up to now I can give following observation :
- repotted young plants rebloom more than others .

So until now I come to the conclusion that they do so because they have been stressed .
Repotting , too much water and/or fertilizer after a dry period , changes in the quantity of shadow , disturbing the roots or soil etc .
I hope one day the Hel's can tell it to us .

I could take a nice Pic end July of a White flowering Hel who was disturbed by a black mole . The Hel must have six years , not so young , and the flowers are acceptable white for the period of the year . ( see my website )

Johan

My h. foetidus Sienna is my oldest helleborus, having been in place several years now. I don't fertilize but mulch with compost every Spring, sometimes repeating in Fall. All my perennial beds get supplemental water by drip irrigation during dry periods, but this is a wet part of the country....winter wet, Fall wet, this year a wet Spring....we also have a strong ocean influence.

My plant begins blooming in October, is lovely at Thanksgiving late November, and was still pretty when I finally was able to gather some ripe seed from the many pods in July. When gathering the seeds, I found new flowers with the red tips just opening, but had to cut the plant back to make room for the other summer blooming perennials. It's lovely, but I hadn't planned on it being the main presence in that bed 12 months out of the year and wanted to enjoy some of it's neighbors too....

Attached is a link to Ruth, which to my untrained eye is much the same as my plant....I, at least, wouldn't be able to tell them apart...Heronswood wasn't offering Sienna this year so I didn't have a picture to paste of it.....

I am not a specialist , but by reading your mail , I think it must be possible to find an answer .
Some plants reflower if you cut the flowerstalks .
A good example is Chrysanthemum Maximum who gives a second crop when winter is not too early . They rebloom out of their normal period .
With all chrysanthemum you can do strange things by cutting and pruning them , it is possible to change the shape and/or even the number of flowers .
Another example is hosta , by cutting the flowerstalks you can get later blooms and this is very useful when you want to make crosses whit late bloomers .

For this moment I have only three kind of H.foetidus ;
recently one collected from seed in Italy and one from Belgium ,
the third I bought "unlabeled" for 2 Euro ( approx. 2 $ ) and resembles H.Sienna . Now I am waiting the moment that they all flower , so I can put some Pics on my website .

At least , I do not know if it is good to cut the foetidus .
In general this plants are short living , I know it by experience .
In my first garden I lost my Spanish specimen after three years .

A small correction .

The question was WHY some plants make blooms out of their normal period .
The same question is why they make seed out of the period ( to survive ) .
My answer is that they have been stressed by ..... a lot of possibilities .
Everybody may correct the word " stress " that I used .

I did not say that the gardener did something wrong .

Sometimes the gardener can use the stressfactor to his own benifit .
Some plants give more flowers if they survive in too small pots ( some exotic orchids )
Other plants do this if you give them no water in winter and too much water at once end March ( some cactus )
Try it and you'll see the difference .

Johan

For whatever reason, it's great for my flower bed!