This strange second spring
THREE flowers float, like miniature waterlilies, in a bowl on my desk. Peachy pink picotees trimmed and traced with damson, they’re the first blooms from a batch of homegrown Helleborus x hybridus seedlings and far better than I’d hoped. It would have been a waste to leave them unpicked in the garden: Lenten roses aren’t meant to compete with roses proper.
Evidently, it’s not only because they’re fumbling first-timers that they’rex Dawn were also in bloom by the start of August. In years past, both have produced summer flowers, but only sparingly and sporadically. This year, there’s a freedom in their forwardness that I’ve not seen before.
