Hellebore drawing

I think it is time to move on from graphite and get back to some color!  February is a bleak month, weather-wise, and the long gray days and cold nights get to me.  I (and every other warm-blooded soul) long for spring.  This is an unusual year in that the mild winter weather has confused the plant kingdom and things are shooting up and blooming out of turn.  We've got daffodils bobbing their sunny heads by the mailbox, and the winter jasmine and forsythia are way ahead of schedule.  Still, the blossoms I look for in February every year are the hellebores.  The delicate, graceful, pastel blooms peeking out from robust, leathery leaves call to mind a warmer, more agreeable landscape than my eyes now behold. 

The Hellebore's common name is 'Lenten rose', which is apt since most species bloom between January and March.  The most common species available for our gardens is Helleborus niger, or 'Christmas rose'.  This is not aptly named because it rarely blooms in time for Christmas.  In fact, in my garden it blooms in February!  Still, I welcome it all the same.  Here is a colored pencil drawing I made several years ago:

I had a beautiful border of hellebores planted in a large clump under several tall tulip poplars.  Sadly, one of the poplars had to be taken down because some insect infested it and killed it.  The tree guys thoughtfully dug up the hellebores before they took down the tree.  But they replanted them in a soldier straight row, all lined up at the base of the remaining poplar.  This looks ridiculous and so very unnatural.  But hellebores hate to be transplanted, and I thought another uprooting would kill them off for sure.  So there they grow still, in a crop row straight as an arrow.  I laugh every time I walk by them, thankful they made it through the ordeal!

Enjoy!