Shady Creek Nursery

LENTEN ROSES Helleborus X hybridus

Lenten Roses, or Hellebores, are some of the best, but least known shade perennials. They are tough--being somewhat drought tolerant and blooming in the coldest months of the year when most plants are at their worst. Their foliage is leathery, evergreen, and serrated. The maximum height is 18” tall, making Hellebores a great clumping type of ground cover. Eventually you will get free plants as they distribute their seed.(Germination won't occur until the following year.)

The main requirements are shade and well-drained soil. The only plants that have ever died for me were those that rotted. Lenten Roses can take morning sun, but their foliage looks faded and often gets brown edges. Brown edges can also develop from harsh winter winds, but new foliage starts appearing soon after the blooms, so it is often recommended that the old foliage should be cut back as blooming starts. I have never done that because I like the green background for the blooms. I sometimes cut off the worst leaves and leave the rest.

These plants will bloom in the deepest shade as long as they have reached “blooming age.” Usually 10%-15% will bloom their third year (from seed) and almost 100% during their fourth.
Blooms are usually white with mauve edges or markings; however, there are many other possibilities. They can be pure white, any shade of pink to purple, and even yellow. When looking at pictures in catalogs, keep in mind that they usually show an assortment of colors possible, but each plant will have only one color of bloom. Until a plant blooms, there is no way to know what color it is.

New “strains” are appearing on the market that have resulted from hand pollination of the plants to try to cross the best colors. Still when ordering a plant less than blooming size, it is a gamble. The most famous of the new varieties is “Royal Heritage Strain” developed by John Elsley of Wayside Gardens. These are now being produced by tissue culture, and I am now able to obtain very limited numbers of these; I cannot say if they will be better plants, but they are definitely more expensive! I am experimenting with them, as well as “Sunshine Strain” by Barry Glick of West Virginia, and I will continue to offer the open-pollinated ones that I purchase in Georgia. Usually my plants sell as soon as they have a bloom on them so I never have been able to accumulate a stock of older plants. For 2006, I will only have year-old plants; the others are sold out.

Blooming usually starts in late January. (I have had a bloom on New Year’s Day in a mild winter.) The blooms will stay on the plant until April or May when seeds have formed and matured. Blooms will not retain their original color over the months; generally they become faded or greenish as they age, but they are still attractive. The blooms are 1”-2” wide and waxy, allowing them to withstand late freezes without harm. A disadvantage of the blooms is that they droop at a 45-degree angle to protect their pollen from the harsh weather in early spring, but that does not bother me. There are not many plants that can tolerate the deepest shade then bloom for months when most plants are asleep. Blooms can be cut with an inch of stem and floated in a bowl of water, as is often done with camellias. The colors will change over the weeks.

Lenten roses prefer moist, well-drained soil with plenty of organic matter. They appreciate being well-fed; use of timed-release fertilizer is recommended, but water soluble fertilizer frequently applied would be fine. Deer turn up their noses at these plants although I have read that mice will enjoy new emerging foliage or the ripening seeds in spring. Slugs and snails will do some damage, but usually they move on to more tender plants. Certainly there is no perfect plant; but a Lenten Rose is one of the best shade perennials that I have found!

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