Honeyhill Farms
a Portland area treasure trove of winter-blooming beauty
Posted by: Kate Bryant on Feb 21, 2012 at 06:45AM
2 Comments
Honeyhill Joy hellebore — the Metcalfes’ own hybrid. This lovely plant with upright, creamy white, long-lasting flowers has been growing in my garden for over five years. (Hot pink flowers in background belong to Cyclamen coum, a charming little plant, growing from a tuber, which produces vibrant pink to white flowers from December to March.
View Slideshow » Illustration:Honeyhill Joy hellebore flowers fade from creamy white to apple green — very pretty yet sturdy, long-lasting flowers.
View Slideshow » Illustration:One of many gorgeous seedlings that grew up to be gorgeous garden plants. Because Honeyhill’s plants are grown from seed, they are genetically diverse. Thus, it’s important to pick the plants you like (favorite flower colors and forms, plant size, single or double, etc.) during February and March, while they are flowering.
View Slideshow » Illustration:Jim Metcalfe enthusiastically shows my friend and I some of his seedlings during a visit to Honeyhill Farms two years ago.
View Slideshow » Illustration:Jim Metcalfe showing us a lovely smoky purple hellebore with particularly nice, prominent nectaries.
View Slideshow » Illustration:The best way to photograph hellebores involves lying down on the ground and pointing the camera upwards. I was particularly smitten with this seedling hellebore but I assure you, it looked even better in person!
View Slideshow » Illustration:Cyclamen coum is a tough, cold-hardy little number, with myriad white or pale to hot pink flowers emerging throughout the cold months of winter. February is usually a peak flowering month. Honeyhill sells this tough little corm “in the green” (in leaf rather than dormant) and with flowers, so you can pick just the colors and leaf patterns you favor.
If you’re interested in buying some of the most beautiful hellebores in town, just pick up the phone and ring Jim and Audrey Metcalfe. Because the Metcalfes do business the old-fashioned way…. just give them a friendly telephone call and set up an appointment to visit their Southwest Portland home and nursery.
Their nursery, Honeyhill Farm is in their back garden so they keep the hours of 2-5 pm daily during hellebore flowering season, which runs through February and March most years. But make the effort to call and visit, and you can expect to be charmed, not only by the wonderful winter-flowering hellebores and spectacular sheets of pink and white Cyclamen coum, but by your sprightly and interesting hosts.
The Metcalfes have been growing and breeding hellebores for some 40 years. It all started with a casual plant trade: they swapped some goutweed for a pretty white hellebore and an obsession was born. As their fervor and interest grew, they delved into breeding better plants with larger, more upfacing blooms; better form and color; and cleaner foliage. Mostly 1-gallon and some larger 2-gallon plants are sold at their home nursery, as well as at the Hillsdale Farmers Market, the Tryon Creek Plant Sale in April, and occasionally at other plant sales.
Jim has a great eye for a good plant, and searches the seedlings for the best-looking plants to sell. In fact, one of their best hybrids, Honeyhill Joy, was picked up and licensed by wholesaler Terra Nova. (See photos in slideshow.)
Make an appointment by calling Audrey and Jim at 503-292-1817. They are open daily while plants are in flower (usually Feb and March), from 2-5 pm daily except Wednesdays.
Seeing these deeper colors over the past few years (especially the smoky purples and rich reds) have made me rethink my feelings on Hellebores :-) Plus, you just have to love when people fall head-over-heels in love with one plant and devote so much of their lives to them…so awesome!
Their hellebore garden is a magical place and a feast for the eyes!