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History and Origins
Once used by the ancient Greeks for poisoning the wells of their enemies, this small group of fully to half-hardy perennials is invaluable for bringing the garden alive during the dark winter months, providing both architectural boldness and unusual floral displays. |
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 Nobody seems to have a bad word to say about hellebores. That is hardly surprising. After all, they flower at a time when the gardener is grateful for any crumb of encouragement, and they prefer to be left to grow undisturbed, which means that we don't have to dig them up and divide them every couple of years. In short, once suited to your site, they are a doddle.
As if that were not enough, they are now grown in such an amazing variety of colours that there are flowers to suit all tastes, whether your predilection is for the brightly spotted, the deep passionate purple, or perhaps the soothing, glistening pure white. They are all there, waiting to be snapped up by us eager growers. It
seems that nurserymen cannot produce enough of them. |
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 Time was, and we are going back thirty years or more, when the hellebore most people grew was Helleborus niger, the Christmas rose. For a start, that was a misnomer. Few of them managed to open their flowers in time for the seasonal festivities, and those that did were bashful, nodding blooms needing a finger under their chins to raise their faces heavenward. Today there are varieties like Helleborus niger 'Potter's Wheel', which are moon-faced and far less timid, and strains are also on offer that will reliably open their pure-white flowers in time for Christmas. |
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 Originally from Germany, Italy, Austria and adjacent parts of Europe, Helleborus niger is never going to stop you in its tracks, except when in flower. The foliage is nothing to write home about, just a cluster of dark, evergreen leaves that sort of sit there doing their job of nourishing the rootstock. Utilitarian you might call them. They don't even grow very high, almost as if they were embarrassed at being seen.
 But Helleborus corsicus is a different matter altogether. It's a show-off both in leaf and flower. The shoots are fully a metre high, sometimes more, and fat and juicy. These are furnished with trios of mid-green, whiskery leaves that are handsome enough on their own, and doubly so when the pale green flower clusters open atop them in late winter and early spring. Helleborus corsicus has changed its name in the last few years. It will always be known as the Corsican hellebore, but its Latin handle is now Helleborus argutifolius. Once the flowers have faded you can snip off the stems at ground level and watch the vigorous new shoots coming up to replace them. It's a lovely plant for tidy-minded gardeners. Big, yes, but so obligingly clean in its habits. Shoots grow one year and then flower the next, and so the cycle progresses. |
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