Posts Tagged ‘Hellebores’

In which The Gay Recluse welcomes the spring garden. The hellebore is perhaps not the most spectacular flower, but we like it anyway: it’s a dependable friend. We feel reassured. After months of planning, the first guests have finally arrived and they seem to be having a good time! The hellebore is thousands of years […]


In which The Gay Recluse retreats to our garden in Washington Heights. As it has done for thousands of years — and not just in our garden — the hellebore has sent forth the most beautiful, delicate blossoms at this improbable juncture, as if to taunt winter into sending one last storm. (Let’s hope nobody […]


One day on the street in Washington Heights we passed an old man who invited us into his garden. Though barely the size of three parking spaces, the garden contained a vast array of unusual trees, including columnar varieties of a blue atlas cedar, a purple beech (the most magisterial of all trees), a Norway […]