Be the First to Bloom! Plant these Hellebore Varieties NOW!
- 8 hours ago
- 4 min read
In this entry, you'll be learning:
The best growing conditions for Hellebores
Hellebore growth characteristics
When Hellebores bloom
That Hellebores are highly deer resistant!
The history behind Hellebore's common names
The differences between our current Hellebore selection
Spring is finally back here at Bountiful Gardens! We can finally step outside, take a breath of fresh air, and start planting some of our favorite Spring perennials, starting with the Hellebore! If you don’t know much about Hellebores yet, here’s a refresher:
Hellebores are one of the most valuable plants that you can have in your shade garden. It’s deer resistant, evergreen, and it flowers at a time when you need blooms the most—late Winter into early Spring.
Hellebores do well in moist, rich, well-draining soils, but they can become drought tolerant once established. We’ve actually seen Hellebores do well in a variety of conditions, as long as it’s not getting baked by afternoon sun. Right now we have over thirty varieties of Hellebore at both our Ewing and Hillsborough locations—the most we’ve ever had!
Hellebores are a beautiful, compact, mounding evergreen perennial that have an average of 12-24” in height and width, with some varieties reaching up to three feet tall and others staying as short as 9”. They can bloom as late in the year as November and December, or as early in the year as February and March.
These perennials attract a variety of early and late flying insects such as butterflies and bees, and the flowers can persist for up to four to five months! Though they’ll fade in color, the flowers provide a lot of focal interest in the garden for a long period of time.
Hellebores are one of our most popular end-of-season perennials, and there are plenty of reasons why. For one, they have beautiful, lush dark foliage with beautiful leaf striping to them, and they come in all different patterns and shapes. Not only is their foliage gorgeous, they also put out delicate blooms during colder temperatures when most other plants aren’t flowering, like early Spring and late Fall.
The flowers come in a wide range of hues, but what really makes them popular amongst New Jersey gardeners is their deer resistance—deer and rabbits won’t touch these! This makes them fantastic for border plantings or as a verdant feature for a container garden.
Hellebores are known by many a name—Hellebore, Lenten Rose, Christmas Rose but one you may not have heard of is Oracle Rose. Back in the old times, they used use the flowers of Hellebores to predict the weather of the Winter and the transition to Spring by seeing when the blooms appeared!
Since we opened our outdoor selection for the season, we’ve been getting so many phone calls from people trying to get their hands on these spectacular Spring bloomers, and as we mentioned earlier, we currently have more varieties in stock than ever before—from classics like ‘Merlin’ to some new and interesting varieties for the season!
First up is ‘Charmer,’ with deep, rich magenta hues and upright flowers that let you really appreciate their beauty. They also have gorgeous leaf venation!
Up next is ‘Pike’s Peak,’ which has a more understated green flower with a yellow center. What it may lack in showy flowers it makes up for in fancy foliage! It’s silvery, spiky leaves are sure to stand out in a shady area, and they kind of look like a ‘Spine Singer’ Epiumedium.
When a lot of people think about Hellebores, they think about downward facing flowers, but we love getting varieties like ‘Cinnamon Snow’ that’s a bit taller and features upright flowers that are easy to enjoy.
‘Mahogany Snow’ offers stunning cream-white flowers that are just bursting with pollen, accented by pink-tipped anthers!
Another variety with really tall, dramatic clusters of flowers is ‘Dana’s Dulcet,’ with its deep, rich colors and huge center sacks of pollen that add a pop of yellow.
‘Moondance’ is a variety where the foliage takes center stage. Its venation is incredibly pronounced, and its large, umbrella-like leaves make gorgeous ground cover swaths.
‘Penny’s Pink’ has a lot of the same appeal with its foliage, but with a pink hue! And of course, you also get tall, delicate flowers floating over top.
Ike’s top pick this year is ‘Ivory Prince,’ which features white and green flowers with neon yellow-green centers, accented by anthers that resemble a little crown!
‘Cheryl’s Shine’ almost belongs in a cut flower garden. Its petals are fuchsia-tipped, fading to a light pinkish white near the center.
We have ‘Winter’s Bliss,’ which has tons of variety between its individual flowers. Some can be deep green, while others are closer to Daffodil-white, and pollen amounts vary from bloom to bloom.
And of course, we’ve got the classic ‘Pink Frost,’ which was a bestseller last year thanks to its tall stature and delicate pink blooms.
No matter what variety you choose, Hellebores are the perfect perennial to add to the garden to help you get excited for the start of Spring and all the things you can be doing outdoors this year!
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