My New Hellebores

Five years ago I had no idea what a hellebore was. Whilst attending a “Colour in the Winter Garden’ course at Roger Harvey’s nursery Harvey’s Garden Plants, I was introduced to the beauty of hellebores and winter has never been the same bleak place again!

Every winter I look forward to going back to see Roger and treating myself to a few new hellebores to add to my newly created Woodland Walk. The Woodland Walk is a winding path between a few sycamores, under which I am planting an under storey of shrubs and ferns and numerous bulbs and spring flowering perennials. All well in theory, but the reality is a very dry, shady area that is plagued with nettles and sticky weed. Hellebores, however, love the area and the ones that I planted two winters ago, just after we moved in, are really getting into their stride.

My new ladies are a mixed bunch and I am looking forward to getting out this week and planting them:

U

Update – March 2015:

On re-reading this post I was very confused – my original hellebores that I brought here from our last garden are currently growing well in a full sun situation and I now always prefer to plant hellebores in at least a partly sunny site.

On reflection I remembered that when we moved here the area now known as the Woodland Walk was much longer and these hellebores were indeed planted under the shade of a group of old sycamore trees. We later found that these trees were suffering from honey fungus disease and they were removed in the autumn of 2013, leaving my original hellebores in full sun where they are flourishing. The new hellebores pictured in this post were planted further down the Woodland Walk and are not bulking up as well, although they have produced some lovely flowers this year.

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