Winter blooms at 3rd festival

Double hellebore plants.

Photo courtesy Fraser’s Thimble Farms

A recent island tradition that has drawn garden enthusiasts from all over North America for the past two years is blossoming into an even greater attraction.

The third Helleborganza event runs at Fraser’s Thimble Farms from Feb. 17 through 26.

Many years in the planning — including six years of growing and breeding before the first Helleborganza in 2010 — it’s only now that nursery owner Richard Fraser’s idea has really matured to its potential.

“We’ve been growing some of the plants from the beginning,” Fraser said.

“As we’ve expanded we’ve connected to a lot more breeders than we thought we would. It’s given us access to material we never thought we’d get.”

Hellebores, a hardy and beautiful winter-blooming plant, remain the star attraction of the sale, but other early flowering perennials such as snowdrops, winter aconites, Adonis, double hepaticas and bulbocodium will also be on hand.

“We’re putting together a collection of plants that are just hard to come by,” Fraser said.

The nursery has more than doubled the number of bloom-sized plants available along with its display area — a good thing since gardening blogs and magazines have been adding the festival to their list of top events for the Pacific Northwest. In the past two years, people travelled from all over the Lower Mainland, Seattle and Bellingham to attend, while this year Fraser has had inquiries from as far away as Norway.

During the festival, which started out as a weekend event in 2010 and this year will last a full 10 days, more plants are expected to come into bloom each day.

“We’re hoping to have literally about 10,000 hellebores in bloom,” said Fraser, noting cooperation from Mother Nature was looking good.

Colourwise, a whole series of bi-coloured bloomers that were just tiny plants last year will be showing to good effect. Fraser said bright coloured stripes and petal rims on double blooms are both popular and stunning, such as the fuchsia-on-white Winter Jewels Rose Quartz and the vibrant reversal in Amethyst Gem.

Fraser’s Thimble Farm is located near Southey Point at 175 Arbutus Rd. Hours of operation are 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. daily except Sundays until Feb. 19 — open every day thereafter.

Visit www.thimblefarms.com to see photos and catalogues.