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Cottage Gardens

Hellebores & Aquilegia

12 years ago

When we had our tree cut down it opened up my patio area to full sun. I have two hellebores and some aquilegia that I need to get moved. Can these plants take a little morning sun? I'm in Texas.

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Comments (6)

gardenweed_z6a
12 years ago
My hellebores are growing at the northeast corner of my house where they get morning sun. They do fine however, I've read that hellebores notoriously dislike being moved.

Columbine will handle a bit more sun than hellebore here in New England--mine are growing where they get several hours of sun followed by afternoon dappled shade. Not sure how they'd handle hot Texas sun but if it's morning rather than midday, they might be okay. Might need to shade them with a lawn chair or umbrella until they get settled in.
sarahrock
12 years ago
The exact same thing happened to me; a tree in my front yard came down last fall, and now I'm nervously waiting to see what is going to happen to the plants in the bed it was shading... namely Hellebores and Columbine. I'm just going to wait it out and see how they and everything in that bed (I tuck in so many random things each year, I can't even remember what until it starts coming up) fair before I make any decisions.

In any case, I'll be interested to compare notes as the season progresses!
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ogrose_tx
Original Author
12 years ago
Sarah, I think I'm going to chance it and move the hellebores to the NE corner of my house, as with our wicked heat I know they won't make it where they are. I'll let the Aqualegias be where they are, they're blooming now.

I'll keep you updated on how they do (keeping my fingers crossed!).
mosswitch
12 years ago
I've never had a problem moving a hellebore, in spring, summer, fall, and I even moved a few this last mild winter with no problems. I've moved seedlings, mature plants, divisions, just dug them up and replanted them, no special care. They just need to be watered when they are planted and a few times after if the weather is dry, until they settle in. One I planted in high summer lost a few leaves but it is fine this spring. Pretty tough plant. They do well in shade/partial shade, average soil.

Aquilegias can have a tap root, if you move them be careful to get it all.

Sandy
docmom_gw
12 years ago
Sandy,
I've actually transplanted mature columbine many times and never had trouble with a tap root. Are you maybe thinking of asclepias rather than aquilegia? Though I always try to take a large chunk of dirt whenever I transplant and then fill in the hole with few topsoil. So, maybe I never ran into that problem.

Martha
mosswitch
12 years ago
Nope, not asclepias. Native aquilegia canadensis, and when I dug it out of my packed gravel driveway, it definitely had a tap root. Maybe in response to where it was growing but it did reseed itself there, not my idea! I did notice that the ones I took out of the pots on the driveway edge didn't have as much of a single taproot, but still heavy root systems, not really fibrous.

Sandy

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