Dying for the Christmas Rose
Clean everything thoroughly afterward. If you don't want to grind down the gel, mix it with 1 part fine sand to parts of silica gel. Choose a box for holding the flowers while they dry. A shoebox or similar box will work well. Poke holes across the base of the box.
Line the box with tissue paper or newspaper. Make sure that the paper goes up the sides of the box too, as you'll be pulling it out later, while the flowers and gel are still on top of it. Lay the chosen flowers onto the silica gel. Check that the flowers are completely dry before adding them; the less moisture, the better. Cover gently with more silica gel. Place the lid on the box or cover firmly with brown paper and tie it down. Let sit in a dry, cool place for 5 to 10 days. Check to see how the flowers have dried. If the silica gel has changed color from bright blue to pink, this is a sign it has absorbed moisture from the flowers.
If the flowers are papery, they're dry.
Gently slide the paper out from under the flowers, pulling it up the side of the box. Let the silica gel fall through the holes into a container for disposal. Make the holes bigger if needed. Remove the dried Christmas roses. When most of the silica gel is out of the box, pick up the roses. They can now be used for craft, floral arrangement or whatever else you have in mind. Include your email address to get a message when this question is answered. Already answered Not a question Bad question Other. In the case of tub plants, you can easily compose the substrate yourself.
Mix a small amount of clay with humus and conventional flowering soil. A drainage on the bottom of the tub ensures that excess water can run out. Hellebore, as the distinctive crowfoot plants are called, are perfectly adapted to a life in our latitudes.
The early flowering plants can cope with calcareous water. As with all evergreen plants, the root ball of Helleborus niger must not completely dry out. Christmas roses in ornamental beds are better at supplying themselves with water from the soil during a long period of drought due to their long roots. Tub plants lose out in this context. It is advisable to check the upper layer of the substrate during that time. If it feels dry and crumbly, it is the ideal time to pour. Adding bark mulch to the bed can minimize evaporation.
However, Helleborus niger has no objections to large-size plant neighbors that carry this task with their dense canopy. In order not to stress the crowfoot plants unnecessarily in the cold season, you should use lukewarm water for pouring. Waterlogging has to be avoided. The evergreen plants are easily satisfied and belong to the slightly debilitating ornamental plants.
They do not get along completely without nutrients. This is especially true for tub plants. Fertilizing is done between the beginning of March and the end of August. Too late fed minerals unnecessarily stimulate the Christmas rose to grow new shoots. Conventional long-term as well as liquid fertilizers have proven themselves for this task.
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Outside, passionate gardeners can resort to compost and horn shavings. Little effort is required to propagate the winter bloomers. It happens in many cases that gardeners almost despair of the strong self-sowing of Helleborus niger.
Not all varieties of the Christmas rose are inheritable. The offspring may have a different flower color than the mother plant. In the specialist trade seeds for Christmas roses can only rarely be found. It is easier to obtain the seeds from your own plants.
Christmas Rose, Helleborus niger – How to Plant and Care
To prevent the plant from self-seeding on the spot, you can place a cloth below the immature fruit capsules. As they break open, the seeds fall onto the fabric and can be easily collected. Christmas roses are cold germinators. Only single-digit temperatures break the seed inhibition and stimulate sprouting. If you want to achieve this in the natural way, you can sow the seeds in the open directly after the harvest. Under ideal conditions, the first young plants will show up in spring.
If you fall back on this method, you should prepare the flowering bed in autumn. The last point is important in order to be able to distinguish the crowfoot plants from weeds in spring. Fast growing plants can overrun the seedlings and cause them to die. Sow the seeds in pots. This way you keep the overview and can replace the young plants to their final location later.
Slender garden soil is filled into a shallow pot. Spread the fine seeds on top and press it only lightly into the substrate.
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The soil must not completely dry, the substrate can be moistened adequately using a water atomizer. Protect them from strong rainfall; this could flush out the seeds. When the seedlings have grown two pairs of leaves, they can be separated. For a long time, Helleborus was cultivated for its mucosal-irritating effect. The roots served as sneezing powder and snuff. By now, Christmas roses are popular ornamental plants, which can also be cultivated in a plant tub without great effort. If you do not have the opportunity to source Christmas roses via neighbors or friends, you have to rely on the plants from the specialist trade.
Depending on the season, caution is recommended when replanting them in the garden. The plants often come from large breeding facilities and have difficulties coping with the temperatures outside.
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Plants that are purchased in winter should be relocated in spring, when there is no danger of black frost. In order to prevent discoloration of the leaves, the plants have to be protected from sunlight during the first few weeks. The crowfoot plants are best used in group planting. The flowering landscape is a fascinating eye-catcher in the gray winter garden. In order for the Christmas roses to develop optimally, a minimum distance of 35 cm must be adhered when planting.
This plant distance is also important if the evergreen perennials are combined with other plants. The ideal plant neighbors are, for example, cyclamen alpinum and various ornamental grasses. Depending on the variety, plants of the crowfoot family can reach a height of up to 60 cm. For this reason, they are easily suitable for cultivation in pots. Provided the vessel has the necessary height to offer sufficient space to the long roots.
Helleborus niger rarely needs to be repotted for reasons of space. Due to their long root system, the crowfoot plants are not suitable for hydroculture. For dewatering, porous non-rottable material has proved its worth. If lava chippings are not available, you can also use small clay fragments or pebbles. An approximately 5 cm thick layer of soil serves as a boundary, so the roots do not have direct contact to the drainage. Repotting or replanting is carried out in the warm season.