Highlight the Hellebores
How to multiply Christmas roses
Hellebores in pots
A bouquet of helebores?
Where to plant them in the garden?
Where to find beautiful varieties of heleboreans?

Highlight the Hellebores

Plant them at the foot of evergreen shrubs (holly, osmanthus, skimmia, laurel tin ...).
Arrange them alongside decorative barks (red dogwood, birch, maple, prunus ...) or winter blooming shrubs (witch hazel, daphne, kitten willow ...).
Strengthen their color effect by combining them with early bulbs (snowdrops, blanda anemone, iris reticulata, scille ...) or perennials (violet, lung, primrose ...).
Note: the flowers lower the head. Plant them high, on a low wall or in an elevated planter. Cut faded or damaged leaves to enhance flowering .


How to multiply Christmas roses

Divide the old tufts in September or March-April.
Sowing is often spontaneous, especially for hybrid hellebores , but the flowers obtained are less beautiful and less colorful than those of the mother plants.


Hellebores in pots

Use a loam (sold in bags) or garden soil , add clay balls for good ventilation. Install your hellebore in a large pot or terracotta basin, 35 cm deep. Plan for good drainage.
Water after planting, if necessary in spring, but not in summer, the plant will rest vegetatively. It can flourish 3-4 years. Afterwards, you have to divide it and repot it .


A bouquet of helebores?

Cut, the hellebore lives only a few hours (careful, poisonous plant, avoid any food contact). In an apartment, buy one or more flowering plants in pots . Arrange them in a basket or basket lined with plastic. Add twigs of dogwood, hazel and willow to kittens.

Where to plant them in the garden?

In the shade , under a tree or at the foot of a wall, a group of shrubs, a hedge, a bamboo plantation. Avoid a dense shade.
In a consistent but well-drained soil, where rainwater penetrates quickly. In soils with low permeability, hellebores rot or become sick.


Where to find beautiful varieties of heleboreans?

It is still difficult to find original and well colored hellebores. But nice meetings are possible on the festival of plants or at a specialized nursery . Buy them in full bloom (between January and April), to be sure of the color of the variety. The trend: slate, yellow and orange, petals with dotted lines, double flowers and more erect inflorescences.

OUR ADDRESSES:
T. and S. Delabroye (authors of the excellent book on
hellébores to ed. Ulmer), 59496 Hantay. Phone: 03 20 49 73 98.
Ellebore, 61360 Saint-Jouin-de-Blavou. Tel .: 02 33 83 37 72.
Bellevue Gardens (national collection), 76850 Bosc-le-Hard. Tel .: 02 35 33 31 37.
Thierry de Rickel, 1490, Court-Saint-Etienne, Belgium.
Tel .: 0032 10 61 44 91.