Spring has been trying ever so hard to rear its lovely head. On a recent walk through the garden I saw snowdrops, witch hazel and hammamelis, and viburnum "Pink dawn" in bloom. It never ceases to amaze me that despite the cold and rain and sleet and snow, many of our garden favourites are popping up their heads and emerging to greet a new gardening season.
The real star of the show in the next month will be Helleborus orientalis or Lenten Rose, the hellebore. Helleborus is a classic garden perennial that generally blooms in the winter/early spring flowering garden.
The two most common and beautiful types of hellebores are Helleborus orientalis (the Lenten Rose) and Helleborus niger (the Christmas Rose). They are both a robust, evergreen perennial with beautiful cup-shaped flowers that appear in early spring. They each form a low growing mound of firm, leathery leaves. The Helleborus niger, which rarely blooms at Christmas, is the first to flower in February/March, while the Helleborus orientalis blooms a little later in March/April.
Hellebores are incredibly low-maintenance plants but can be notoriously slow to establish. Once they do, though, you will be rewarded year after year. They appreciate a partly shaded area and most varieties do not flourish in full sun.
They prefer soil that is rich and amended with lots of organic matter, and that is moist but well drained. A woodland setting lends itself well to the hellebore. I choose to plant mine at the front of the border so the flowers will be visible when they bloom.
Try and find the perfect spot to site them as they do not appreciate being moved. Clumps can be divided in the spring or fall, but again they prefer not to be disturbed and can sometimes recover slowly.
There are two schools of thought about pruning or cutting back hellebores. Some people like to cut back the previous year's leaves in early spring (January-March) so they can fully enjoy the buds coming up and the new blooms. Others do not appreciate the bare look of the plant and waiting for the new leaves to flush out and grow back.
Personally, if your hellebore is a first- or second-year plant, I would just leave it alone. Chances are you will not have masses of old leaves to deal with and the plants will look very scrawny if you chop back the leaves.
If you have a well-established hellebore, feel free to cut back the old leaves from the previous summer right to the base of the clump. Sometimes you will see a few new leaves poking their way out of the ground in spring. You can leave the new leaves and chop the old ones back right to the base of the plant. Not only will you get to enjoy the beauty of the blooms as the buds grow and expand, but you will remove old garden debris that can make a home for pests like slugs and snails.
Hellebores look great anywhere in the garden and are useful as an understory plant to rhododendrons, deciduous trees and shrubs. They also look great in a mixed border with spring-flowering bulbs.
