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"HAPPY SPRING!!"

This month we travel to visit our Gardenbuddy Tim who lives in a small village called Broughton. It is 15 miles north of the city of Cambridge which is well known across the world for its university, in an area of the UK known as East Anglia. I promise you will be mesmerized and fascinated with his Collection of Hellebores and Cyclamen!

My name is Tim Murphy. I am addicted to hellebores & cyclamen.

My name is Tim Murphy. I am 31 years old, and I am addicted to hellebores & cyclamen. There, I've said it. And yet I don't feel unburdened, the weight hasn't lifted from my shoulders, and I don't feel as if I've taken the first step towards cracking my addiction. Perhaps it's because I don't want to stop being addicted to these plants, and why would I?....

Cyclamen coum in the glasshouse.

Cyclamen coum flowering outside beneath a magnolia.

Cyclamen mirabile growing in the open garden.

Cyclamen parviflorum flowering in the Glasshouse. This Turkish endemic has strongly scented flowers which on a warm day can fill the glasshosue with the scent of violets.

My interest in plants started in 1998 when my wife Susan and I bought our first house together shortly before we were married. The house was a small two bedroom place with an equally small rear garden. The finer details of exactly how I became interested in horticulture and botany are a blur, but my first horticultural obsession was sparked off when I saw species cyclamen for the first time. I soon bought my first glasshouse and joined the Cyclamen Society, which helped me on my way to a representative collection of the genus.

Inside the large glasshouse.

Then I found hellebores. Bear in mind that I knew nothing about these plants, or any other plant at this point, apart from cyclamen. All I knew is that I wanted to grow some. I have a natural predisposition to jumping into everything I do feet first, so my collection of hybrid hellebores grew very quickly. I liked the hybrids, but I wanted to know more about them, such as how were they developed, what they were developed from and who by, etc. Information about species hellebores was, and still is thin on the ground, and I found that most of what I read had no real content, was contradictory and told me very little about the wild hellebore species. My search for accurate information lead me to Will McLewin who is the world authority on hellebores. Finally I had someone to talk to about these fascinating, but troublesome plants. Will and I have been firm friends for five years now, and for that I am very grateful. Will and I travelled around the Balkans in 2004 looking at several species of hellebore, and we have had many long telephone conversations about these plants, but I still feel that I am no closer to answering many of the questions I first had when I started growing hellebores! Despite developing what might be best described as a love/hate relationship at times between myself and hellebores, I can never see a time in the future when I won't be completely devoted to them.

A double flowered form of Helleborus x hybridus

A dark, double flowered form of Helleborus x hybridus.

In 2001 I saw my first species hellebores in the wild - Helleborus odorus on the Greek island of Corfu. In 2002, I made my first field trip to the Balkans to study the various species growing in Croatia, Bosnia and Slovenia. Things were becoming serious. In the same year it became apparent that I was running out of room to grow hellebores. I had taken over the entire rear garden and had two glasshouses, but it still wasn't enough. We were lucky enough to be in a position where in the five years since we had bought our first house together, it had more than doubled in value. The decision to sell up was made shortly before Christmas 2002. I needed more room to grow hellebores.

A superb example of Helleborus atrorubens from southeast Slovenia.

In June 2003 we moved into our current house, which was built in 1930 and sits on a 1/4 acre plot. Not big by US standards, but well above average size in the UK. The house needed, and still needs, lots of work doing to it. But, we didn't buy it for the house, we bought it for the garden. My aim was to create a small nursery devoted to the culture and study of the genus Helleborus, much in the same way as Will McLewin has done at Phedar Nursery.

A view of the garden. Most of the species hellebore beds are at the far end, closer to the polytunnel.

Looking back down towards the house. It still resembles a building site!

It wasn't an easy move. I had thousands of plants to look after, with no glasshouses up at first. And to make things even more complicated, the summer of 2003 was the hottest in the UK for several years. The first job was to lift every piece of turf in the rear garden and then to create beds which would facilitate the study of the species hellebores I planned to plant throughout the garden. In early September 2003 I re-erected my two original 6x4 glasshouses and added a larger 12x8 feet glasshouse. That was the cyclamen sorted out. In October 2003 I added a 20x10 feet polytunnel at the far end of the garden which would be for growing hellebores from seed - at least that was the plan - the cyclamen seedlings have slowly made their way into this tunnel. Another polytunnel of the same size is currently being constructed next to the first one. This second tunnel will hold all of my cyclamen stock plants, which are used for exhibiting and for seed production, with the three glasshouses holding all of the saleable cyclamen. I hope that doing all of this will allow me to use the original polytunnel for what is was bought for - to grow hellebores.

Inside the polytunne

My interest in hybrid hellebores has waned a little, and I still have to make an effort to get really excited about them. I do have a bed of hybrid hellebores, and I do add to it whenever I grow something from seed which I think is worthy of keeping, but I find myself not all that bothered about doing much, if any work with hybridizing. There are enough people already doing it. My work with species hellebores keeps my more or less constantly occupied and I have been going on annual field trips (twice in 2004, and 2006) since 2001. I collect seed from wild plants so that all of my species hellebores are of known provenance. This article makes no sense if the reader doesn't know why I grow so many species hellebores, and why I insist on growing them from wild collected seed. So please, bear with me and I will explain, hopefully without boring you too much...

Helleborus purpurascens in the garden, originating from northern Hungary.

Helleborus torquatus originating from Montengro.

The acaulescent group of hellebore species will all cross with each other very easily if grown in the same general area. Add to that the fact that most of these species are extremely variable in appearance (both the foliage and flowers). In wild populations, the plants growing there can be so variable that it appears that some of the plants have been 'influenced' by another species - meaning that these plants appear to have characteristics of other species which may or may not grow close by. If I were to grow plants from cultivated seed of such species, they would all look different to the parent in varying degrees (I should add here that some would show a strong resemblance, some would look very different, but none would be an exact match), therefore, I would never know if the offspring were showing hybrid qualities, or simply showing the variability present in that particular species.

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A bed of emerging Helleborus occidentalis originating from several European countries.

A very rare plant in cultivation. Helleborus orientalis abchasicus. Political troubles in Georgia mean that obtaining authentic material of this plant is virtually impossible at he moment.

Helleborus x hybridus.

Helleborus dumetorum in the garden.

The only way I can be sure of growing pure plants of a particular species, is to go out ot the Balkans and collect wild seed. Although these trips are done on a tight budget, costs are still high and my garden is now more of a nursery, with all funds raised from plant and seed sales funding the annual fieldwork. The garden is a collection of beds, each holding a specific species of hellebore. They are planted out in rows and each plant is accompanied by a detailed label with information about where the seed the plant was grown from was collected and when, etc. My garden doesn't really look like a garden at all, and there are times in the year when I look at photos of the gardens owned and maintained by my fellow GB's and feel quite envious. But still I wouldn't change what I have.

Helleborus x hybridus.

Although it doesn't look like it, there are now around 700 hellebores planted out and there is room for well in excess of 2000 in total, so I have room yet! I more or less have the plants, I just haven't had the time. There is room still for more beds to be made. I like to plant my species hellebores in some sort of order, or at least what I think is in order. For example, Helleborus cyclophyllus and Helleborus odorus are clearly very closely related, so I plant them alongside each other so that I can make comparisons. This trend is evident throughout the garden. My ideas about the relationships between certain species does evolve though, sometimes going full circle which means that I do move my plants around regularly, with them moving into and out of a few beds over a couple of years, sometimes with them ending up where they began. I had to move a large number of plants out of a bed which ran parallel to the fence between our property and our neighbours. This long stretch of land received no sun whatsoever in the winter which meant that the hellebores growing there were sitting in wet, heavy soil (we garden on heavy clay). Back in October 2005 we removed the 140ft long, 6ft high fence which separated our property from our neighbours, and replaced it with hornbeam hedging. It is still early days, but I have high hopes and am sure that hellebores will thrive in the bed they once struggled in. I am hoping that the hedge will allow more light through to the plants in winter, and take excess moisture out of the soil.

Helleborus x hybridus.

Helleborus x hybridus

Apart from the hornbeam, I do have a few Cornus and a couple of Hamamelis. We are south facing and the hellebores enjoy being in the full sun, so any trees I plant for structure need to cast minimal shade. Apart from a single Acer near the glasshouses, I have planted just birch throughout the garden. They add the much needed structure but still allow plenty of light through, even during the summer months.

I should write a little about the cyclamen, because although hellebores will always be my favourite plants, cyclamen are a close second. My favourite species is Cyclamen purpurascens. Its flowering time is late summer and into fall, has scented flowers and never really goes dormant, throwing the odd flower throughout the year. I like all of the species though, and I am not without any of the species currently in cultivation. My collection is spread across the three glasshouses and a polytunnel. All are in pots and are kept until a better form crops up in my seedlings. This way, my collection evolves and improves, although it is sometimes hard to get rid of a plant I have had for some time and I do have a few which I keep for sentimental reasons. The glasshouses and polytunnel are kept just frost free by using electric heaters in the former and a gas heater in the latter. I do plan to have outside plantings of most cyclamen species, but I have to be careful where I plant them. In amongst the hellebores would look great but I am constantly moving the hellebores around, so nothing can be planted with them. I will sort something out in the future, perhaps in the form of raised beds so that the cyclamen can grow undisturbed.

I hope you have enjoyed your visit to my garden-cum-nursery. When you look at the photos, bear in mind that it is still a very young garden and the trees haven't established themselves yet, but it does have potential and it will only get better at time goes on. It's a little unconventional, and lacks any form or asthetic design, but the hellebores and cyclamen love it...

Thank you very much Tim for sharing your love of these plants...you have become quite the collector....Jeanne

Produced by Jeanne

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