For a couple years now I’ve watched and waited for our hellebore to bloom. Every year I jealously read the posts of other gardener bloggers who are happily displaying their hellebore blooms but alas, I had no flowers to share! But now the single Lenten rose I have has grown into an 18″ little bush with glossy green leaves and has finally flowered.
Shade is hard to come by in our yard – at least in the cultivated areas – and so the space where other hellebores could grow has been occupied by other shade loving occupants, namely hostas and heucheras, which left little room for Lenten roses. But perhaps I should make some room?
I do have a location that might be perfect for more Lenten roses. There’s a little garden in the very back of our yard near the garden shed that could be a new home for hellebores. The deer have feasted there before on my hostas but since hellebores are deer resistant plants they might be safe. (Hellebores are poisonous so do not ingest!)
My hellebore may reseed and if that happens I could move any offspring to the back garden but most likely I”ll have to propagate more hellebores through division. Although from what I’ve read about dividing hellebores it could be tricky and it may be easier to make more plants with seed.
When the leaves aren’t frost bitten they really make a nice groundcover. My poor plant somehow managed to get itself singed by the cold. I’m sure it will bounce back with new growth once we have consistently warm temperatures. The only real downside to a hellebore is that fact that the flower face down! As you can see I had to hold up the flowers for the pictures.
Dave,
We have close to 40 hellebores now. Many were transplants from other gardens. Dividing them stunts them back a little, but in can be done. The ones we moved into the garden last year with 40-50 blooms might be lucky to have 10 blooms this year.
The new Helleborus Gold Collection (HGC) have upright flowers, I recently purchased 3 of them look at recent posts on my blog. If you want more and upright I'd look into these. The babies you might get will taken at least three years to bloom.
They are stunning! Worth the wait!
Hi Dave,
I had several hellebores in my last garden and left them there. They are so expensive now and hard to find, so I bought the only one left at the nursery last year and paid about $23.00 for it.
I hope it survived the winter, no sign of it yet.
Eileen
Dave, so thrilled for your gorgeous blooms! I've had hellebores from the very beginning of our gardens here, on the recommendation of my mom.
You should cut the damaged foliage out. It will continue to shoot out new foliage and become even more beautiful. This is its season to shine!
Yes and I plan to have more of them! I have 2 good sized plants (one that looks just like yours) and a couple of seedlings I'm nurturing along. Mine hasn't been bounteous with the seedlings but I'll take one here and there to transplant elsewhere. These things have done wonderful for me in TN. I got my start from Glenda Owens who attends the MTPS in 2007. Until then I didn't even know what a Lenten rose was. The blooms stay on for a long time in the spring so you'll get to enjoy them many more weeks. I'm going to post pics of mine tonight so check my blog out later.
Love those hellebore. I think I have one that is so little therefore I'm babying it. I really don't know how they look. It's hard with only 2 leaves.
I am landscaping with a sharp eye out for Japanese Beetle least liked plants – any word on these beautiful Hellebores and Japanese Beetles?