Garden Plants

How to choose and grow hellebores

By Sue Hamilton

Sue Hamilton offers advice on choosing and growing hellebores

Helleborus x hybridus (formerly known as orientalis)

'To enjoy the orientalis varieties at their absolute best, I always cut back the leaves completely once the flower buds are about to burst open.'

Helleborus x sternii 'Boughton Beauty'

One plant that is really worth growing for its late-winter and early-spring colour is the hellebore. These popular perennials are relatively easy plants to grow although, once established, they are notoriously difficult to move.

Soil and situation

Hellebores thrive in areas of shade or semi-shade in a soil that has some moisture retention, but is not boggy. Probably the most favourable area, and one that seems quite natural, is under trees or within a woodland aspect. The falling leaves from the trees will provide a natural mulch and add to the soil’s moisture-retaining potential. While hellebores grow well under trees, they also perform superbly in a border.

Helleborus orientalis

Hellebores are now available in a wide range of colours from green through to deep purple, or almost black, and even spotted. There are a number of different varieties and some also have interesting foliage, although the type seen mostly across our gardens are the orientalis varieties, which freely cross-pollinate and produce seedling plants in a wide range of flower types and colours.

To enjoy the orientalis varieties at their absolute best, I always cut back the leaves completely once the flower buds are about to burst open. In the early part of the year they look tatty, invariably, and detract from the spectacular flowers.

Once the flowers begin to fade, the new, fresh-green leaves emerge from the soil and these will unfurl and be of interest until cut the following winter.

Propagation

I have found that the easiest way to propagate hellebores is simply to leave them to do it naturally, as they come up like mustard and cress around established plants, but can take up to three years to germinate when collected and sown into seed trays.

DIVISION: If you want to propagate a named orientalis variety, or a seedling that has germinated with a particularly spectacular flower, the only way to guarantee the plant you’ll end up with is to divide an established plant.

This is because the orientalis varieties do not come true from seed. Hellebores do not like disturbance, however, so you’ll need to weight up the pros and cons before setting to work.

Sue digs up seedlings gently to pot on

SELF-SEEDING: Allow hellebores to disperse their seeds onto the surrounding ground, but keep a note of where they are for when you hoe and weed the following spring. They will require a period of cold to break the seed dormancy before germination can occur.

It is pot luck really as to what the flowers of each seedling is going to be, so select as many as you can cope with randomly, before lifting very carefully with a trowel and placing gently into a suitable container.

POTTING ON: You can them pot them into 8cm (3in) pots and plant out once they are big enough. I like to put them into a growing bed, but any corner of the garden will do, until I can select the flower colour I need.

LEAVES: Cut back the leaves of orientalis hybrids in winter (around Christmas or New Year), so they don't detract from the flowers. Cut back those of Helleborus x sternii 'Boughton Beauty' (pictured above) in late spring, after flowering, to tidy the plant.

MULCH: All hellebores benefit from a mulch with a ring of garden compost around the clumps. Apply mulch to orientalis hybrids in winter when you cut them back, and in late spring to those such as H. x sternii (which flower at the top), after cutting their leaves back.

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