Friday, February 10, 2012

F & G Show, day 7

The hellebore and SARCOCOCCA above are planted in an old rusted bucket my sister has owned for years.  Because the screens running across the back of the Show Garden are a rusted metal I felt there needed to be something rusted elsewhere in the garden.  My sister's garden offered this bucket.
Clearly the bucket is quite old.  Above is a spring planting:  pansy and a lime HEUCHERA and a brown CAREX--I think it might be 'cappuccino.'  Part of the side has rotted away, so any planting has to be seasonal.  
Because the SARCOCOCCA, or sweetbox, is scented--it smells of vanilla--I wanted it at the front of the Show Garden, so I knew that would go into the bucket.
 I always have liked white hellebore and sweetbox planted together.  The tapering leaves of the sweetbox are a good contrast with the larger, wider hellebore leaves.  And the anemone-like hellebore flower is nicely substantial next to the white wisps of sweetbox flower.
The moss covering the surface of the soil in the bucket is a lighter green than the leaves of the two plants, and the old white doorknobs I placed around them lighten the dark green and the rusted bucket.
The HELLEBORUS is 'winter song, a niger, that started blooming in December.  The flower is quite upright, unlike the usual drooping hellebore flower.
A number of people have commented on the sweetbox scent, and a few have asked for the name of the hellebore.  No one has mentioned the connection between the rusted bucket and the rusted screens.  Yet I think that link is part of what allows people to enjoy the garden.





  

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