HARDY PERENNIALS FOR SPRING 95 



manage as pot plants. One of the most successful growers I 

 ever knew was a farmer's wife, whose Christmas Roses were 

 always to be envied. These used to divide their yearly cycle 

 between a deep earthenware washing-pan, in which they 

 flowered, and a shady border under a north wall, to which they 

 were banished as soon as the flowers were past their best, but 

 not neglected, for they received a generous mulch of farmyard 

 manure and an occasional drenching with rain-water, not 

 wholly free from soapsuds, during hot and dry summer 

 weather. When the buds had gained some size in the late 

 autumn, the clump was carefully lifted without disturbing the 

 roots and reinstated in the brown pan, whose winter station 

 was on the broad windowsill of the best parlour. 



Here, sheltered from wind and rain, the flowers opened, 

 pure and fresh, in due season. No better system than that 

 adopted by my old friend can be followed, though a broad, 

 deep garden-pan, with drainage-holes complete, may be substi- 

 tuted as more fitting for the greenhouse, though it is doubtful 

 whether it would prove an actual gain. To prepare such a 

 plant the root-stock of an old clump must be carefully broken 

 up into pieces, each with growing buds and some of the black 

 fibrous roots attached, from which the species derives its 

 name. The only right moment to do this is just when the 

 greening sepals show that the flowering time is over and 

 active root growth is setting in, and these flower-stems should 

 be cut away to prevent an effort to seed. After planting the 

 pieces, not too thickly, the pan should be plunged, preferably 

 in a border shaded from midsummer sun, and the surface 

 mulched to keep the roots moist and good. It is very possible 

 that there will be no flowers the first season, as Hellebores 

 dislike root disturbance. After the first year the plant should 

 be turned bodily out of the pan into the border during the 

 summer and replaced in autumn, which can be done with very 

 little meddling with the roots. 



