Shade and damp (neither)
There are a few generalised myths about most hellebores, especially the garden hybrids, one is that they are shade plants. They’re not really. Yes they can tolerate full shade but they won’t flower well at all and they may dwindle away.
Ideally they enjoy sunshine and an open aspect during spring while they are flowering and when their new leaves come through. Then they appreciate some shade from the brightest sun, such as underneath deciduous trees or shrubs, during summer. In autumn they’ll grow roots and gather energy to produce flower buds so like to see the sun again when leaves fall. There is always an exception – Helleborus foetidus can tolerate more shade than others and some species plants like a little more sun.
Nor do they like wet soil. They prefer the Goldilocks soil of well-drained but moisture retentive, with plenty of leaf mold. It’s also suggested they prefer neutral to alkaline soil as the are often found in limestone areas, but my garden is good old Cornish acidic and they are quite happy. Perhaps the copious amounts of neutral to alkaline garden compost helps though.
Many species were found growing on the edges of woodland, on scrubby slopes with bracken, places that give them cover from the summer sun but exposure at other times. Many have been found in what has been described as ‘limestone shibliak’ in the Balkans and Greater Caucasus, a type of vegetation which comprises deciduous and relatively drought-resistant Mediterranean shrubs and trees. Shrubby, mountainous areas resulting from the original woodlands having been cut down.
And some species come from really quite warm, dry places. H. lividus comes from the mountains in Majorca, and several garden hellebores have this species in their make-up. They are even happier in sun. They grow on stony, dry, exposed, mostly north facing hillsides but with their roots in the shade of a rock. I’ve seen some of the new hybrids with veined leaves (therefore must contain H. lividus or H. argutifolius) planted in full sun in a dry, raised bed in almost clay that have been surprisingly happy. Above all, it is heat they all do not like so much, hence the need for shade during the hottest part of the day and year.
A clue to the ability of hellebores to withstand drier conditions than we think, is in their thick, waxy leaves to protect from moisture loss, and their mass of fleshy roots which also contain water. They are ‘quiet’ during midsummer and mainly grow during spring and autumn, then flower over the winter into early spring, indicative of a species that comes from a place with warm, dry summers. They are also extremely hardy, but when in the ground will benefit from an autumn mulch to protect those fleshy roots if temperatures get well below freezing. If in pots, always protect the pot and don’t let the roots freeze. Consider them much less hardy.
Named cultivars
On social media, I see a lot of people posting a picture of a hellebore flower and asking ‘what variety is this’.
So, two myths here – a variety is a naturally-occurring group within a species and comes true from seed, which hellebores do not. Cultivars are deliberate crosses and can only be reproduced exactly by tissue culture or splitting the plant.
All hellebore hybrids are cultivars, and because of the variations possible within a crossing, each cultivar is unique. So unless a plant has been produced via tissue culture it cannot be a named cultivar (unless you’ve given a name to a single plant and divided it).
An example of a named cultivar is Helleborus x ericsmithii ‘Winter Moonbeam’. Additionally, this cross is infertile. All Winter Moonbeam plants have been raised via tissue culture and all are identical.
What some breeders have managed to do though, is to produce ‘groups’ or ‘seed strains’. These are collections of similar-looking plants, often achieved by selfing (although plants can get progressively weaker) or by crossing the same or similar parents each year.
An example of this is Harvington’s Double Chocolate. Harvington’s have chosen to name this seed strain because they get fairly regular plants from the seeds they produce each year. The plants are not usually sold until they flower, to make sure the flowers are the same.
An older seed strain from one of the original hellebore breeders, Elizabeth Strangman, is called Queen of the Night. She originally applied the name to a single plant, but subsequently it transferred to the seed group when it was seen that offspring looked very similar.
A caveat – not all seedlings of a group or seed strain should be given that name, only those which match the description of the seed strain, as with all natural variation, some will not.
When we took on the garden here, I found a label next to some hellebores that read ‘Hellebore Queen of Night’. No plants have flowered since we’ve been here that look like ‘Queen of the Night’. There are a couple of very dark plants, one almost black with dark new leaves and a slaty bloom but it has green nectaries. As it does not follow the full description of the seed strain, it cannot be named Queen of the Night and should not be passed on as such. It’s possible they are seedlings of the original though.