Hellebores. The first of many posts about hellebores. Dahlias are great but not quite as great as hellebores.

 

These are all new transplants with their very first flowers. I think I moved them from near their mother plants 2 years ago, or maybe just last year. The big surprise is that they have that inner ruffle, which I've never seen in my hellebores. I have a lot to learn about these random double blooms.

 

Last week I went to a plant sale at the American Horticulture Society in Alexandria, VA, and I met one of the authors of this book. So I had to buy it. Hellebores, also called Lenten roses, may be the perfect plant: they require virtually no care and very little sun, they survive very cold winters (the picture below shows my blooms under the last significant snow we had in late March), they produce many seedlings that can be easily moved, and (drumroll) deer won't eat them. Deer do, however, stomp on them so they still have to be protected a bit.

Bullfrogs. Lots and lots of bullfrogs.

 

I took this video last weekend when the bullfrogs  (I think they're bullfrogs) in the pond next door were having a spring orgy. Turn up the sound to hear them singing. Since they are said to be a bio-indicator species, I guess the pond is in good shape, despite all the poison some of my neighbors apply to their lawns and that runs into this pond. I'm not one to nag neighbors about the harmful things they do in their yards, but my family sure has to listen to me complain about it.

This is the pond in February or March, with a couple of ducks on the left standing on the thin ice.

Noooooooooo!

 

I've always had a late-night guy to watch on TV. For some years now Stephen has been my favorite. This is a sad day for me because it looks like Stephen is going the way of all the other late-night white dudes (with the exception of late-night Steve Allen, who only very old people will remember). Stephen's going to the land of interviewing starlets. Noooooo!

 

On the up-side, I'm very happy for Dave, who finally gets to retire. He's certainly made me laugh over the past 30-odd years.