A bridge between seasons: the Hellebore
Marianne Willburn
(3/2024) Rose colored glasses and a heavy coat are still standard issue for most fair-weather gardeners in the last weeks of March. As winter reluctantly gives up its hold on soil, root and sanity, there is as much to ignore as to celebrate, and there’s never enough color – no matter how many bulbs were roughly planted by flashlight and drill auger in the closing moments of December.
The relative nakedness of daffodils, crocus and snowdrops against a still apocalyptic tundra is certainly cheering; but when glasses are removed, it becomes apparent that what’s needed to tie them all together is a freshness and vigor that evergreen foundation shrubs can’t provide.
Solving problems one garden at a time
For decades, the presence of a few hellebores in a garden signified either competence or inheritance. They were your gardening grandmother’s secret – a deer resistant (not deer-proof!), shade-tolerant, evergreen perennial with solid hardiness in USDA Zones 4-8 (and a little wiggle room on both ends for some species). Those in the know, knew. Others grew hosta and wept when the deer showed up.
Even the most down-market of hellebore species with a penchant for promiscuity – H. orientalis – is a charming and versatile plant. Bitter winds might burn the clumps of leathery, palmate foliage; but vibrant green leaves will unfurl in late winter to replace them, while copious flowers open in colors from white-green to plum-charcoal, depending on the subspecies.
A secret weapon in the early spring garden
I couldn’t tell you the parentage of those that fill in the gaps under my winter berries and continue to proliferate without shame, but I know that I love them.
Their foliage fills the tragedy of empty, ravaged soil in part sun or shade, and provides a stunning backdrop to bulbs and emerging perennials. Later, the hellebore’s shade tolerance and relative strength allows it to transition to groundcover as surrounding deciduous shrubs and trees put on leaves and spring turns into summer. Seedlings emerge in late winter as numerous as stars.
For those that have had a hillside of H. x hybridus for years, it becomes second nature to pull out drab seedlings (they can take three years to flower), and select for new and interesting colors and flower forms. But for the newbie with only a few plants, a hellebore seedling is a present to be unwrapped – a treasured and precious surprise. I’m still in the save-and-sift-seedlings stage of my gardening life.
But there is a caveat, as there often is with most things that seem too good to be true. Though the flowers of many hellebore species age slowly with the strength and grace of Paulina Porizkova, they don’t share her posture, nodding towards the soil and forcing the gardener to bend over to fully view them.
For this reason, gardeners often float the sturdy blossoms in bowls or trays to create exquisite winter tablescapes and establish instant horticultural credentials over dinner.
Enter the Cover Girls
Over the last decades, excellent breeding programs in the U.K, Europe and the United States have expanded the gardener’s palette with delicate, beautiful flowers on strong plants that tickle the collector’s spirit. Doubles, freckles, picotees, reverse picotees, suffusions of gold…the cultivars are astonishing, and captivating.
In 2010 the patent for a new kind of hellebore was filed by German breeder Josef Heuger – a plant that held its deep rose-pink blooms outward on strong, dark stems. Its name eventually became ‘Pink Frost’, and it was a game changer – particularly in the florist world. Many others followed, florists swooned; and consumers began to pay more attention to their grandmother’s flower.
Don’t Break the Bank
Do you have to grow the expensive hybrids to grow hellebores? Absolutely not. Thanks to the promiscuity of the afore mentioned H. x hybridus (H. orientalis) hellebores and the dissected leaf H. foetidus seedlings, I have a hillside of wonderful no named cultivars.
If you care what color/form is coming into your garden, it’s important to always buy a plant with at least one bloom as seedlings are incredibly variable. If you don’t care, you’re liable to score some amazing tiny plants with great potential – and some free plants from friends that will still delight you.
It is a beautiful bridge between seasons that will be decorating my house and garden for the next five to six weeks, and I wouldn’t be without them. Don’t let another year go by in your garden without cultivating this kind of joy. -MW
