Hellebores in the Garden Today
‘Anna’s Red’, a new addition to the FrostKiss™ hellebore family.
All my customers have been commenting that their hellebores are spectacular this year. Mine are too, and I thought it would be fun to show you photos of hellebores in my garden today.
Although I have hundreds of hellebores in bloom, I have limited the photos to hellebores that will be available for sale at the Carolyn’s Shade Gardens open house sale this Saturday, April 14, from 10 am to 3 pm. If you can’t come on Saturday, I still have appointments available on Friday, April 13, on the hour and half hour from 10:30 to 5—just email me, carolyn@carolynsshadegardens.com, your top three choices, and I will confirm.
Nursery News: Our first open house sale featuring hellebores, early spring-blooming shade plants, and native plants is this Saturday, April 14, from 10 am to 3 pm.
Carolyn’s Shade Gardens is a retail nursery located in Bryn Mawr, PA, specializing in showy, colorful, and unusual plants for shade. The only plants that we ship are snowdrops and miniature hostas. For catalogues and announcements of events, please send your full name, location, and cell number (for back up use only) to carolyn@carolynsshadegardens.com. Click here to get to the home page of our website for catalogues and information about our nursery and to subscribe to our blog.
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First up, the FrostKiss™ outward-facing hellebores, including ‘Anna’s Red’ above:
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‘Dorothy’s Dawn’, another 2018 addition to the FrostKiss™ line of hellebores, has beautiful flowers, but what I really love is….
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….the leaves, which, like all FrostKiss™ foliage, lasts all winter into spring.
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FrostKiss™ ‘Penny’s Pink’ has been around for four years and thrives in my garden.
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The flowers of FrostKiss™ ‘Molly’s White’ are prolific and lovely, but the best attribute of this hellebore is ….
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….the gorgeous leaves.
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Other outward-facing hellebores:
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‘Pink Frost’ is a lovely hellebore, shorter than the FrostKiss™ hellbores and perfect for a smaller garden or space.
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‘Spring Party’ is also shorter and smaller, but blooms later and has beautiful marbled leaves that last through the winter.
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For unusual colors and double flowers, you can’t beat “Lenten Roses”, the standard hybrid hellebores and my personal favorites:
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‘Wedding Bells’ is part of the Wedding Party™ series, a vigorous and well-selected group of double hellebores. White hellebores really stand out in the garden.
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Another Wedding Party™ series hellebore, ‘Flower Girl’.
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The Winter Jewels® series of double hellebores is also spectacular:
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‘Harlequin Gem’ has a lighter interior with dark purple-black outer petals.
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‘Golden Lotus’, a double yellow hellebore, is prominently featured in my yellow hellebore collection.
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‘Onyx Odyssey’, a blue-black selection, is outstanding.
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‘Peppermint Ice’, along my front walk, catches everyone’s eye.
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The Honeymoon™ series of single hellebores is also quite beautiful:
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‘New York Night’ is amazing, look for it around back by the deck.
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‘Spanish Flare’ is another prominent feature of my yellow hellebore collection.
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If you are local, I hope you can stop by on Saturday and see all these lovely hellebores in person in my garden. For all my far flung readers, enjoy the photos!
Carolyn
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Nursery Happenings: You can sign up to receive catalogues and emails about nursery events by sending your full name, location, and phone number to carolyn@carolynsshadegardens.com. Subscribing to my blog does not sign you up to receive this information. Please indicate if you will be shopping at the nursery or are mail order only.
Carolyn’s Shade Gardens is a local retail nursery in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, U.S., zone 6b/7a. The only plants that we mail order are snowdrops and miniature hostas and only within the US.
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CAROLYN'S SHADE GARDENS 
April 14, 2018 at 5:42 pm
How do we get your plants if we can’t get to PA? I am in Maine. apparently you do not do mail order.
April 15, 2018 at 12:08 pm
The only plants that I ship are snowdrops and mini hostas. If you are interested in those, then email me your full name and cell number for back up contact information only, and I will put you on the list.
April 15, 2018 at 5:26 pm
I am instantly in love with all of these, but most especially “Dorothy’s”! Hellebores are definitely in my game plan once the destruction, I mean “renovation” of the Money Pit and surrounding frontage is done. I will have about 35 feet of east-facing exposure along the front walkway that seems perfect for hellebores and probably epimediums as well. I realized the other day that after having all those oaks removed in December, I actually have very few shady or part-shade areas anymore. The other parts that are shaded are already infested with invasives that will be impossible to remove (ivy and Houttonyia, mostly) so anything planted there would get swallowed up. 😦
April 16, 2018 at 1:30 pm
Hellebores grow in any well-drained site with almost full sun to almost full shade. ‘Dorthy’s Dawn’ is my new favorite of the Frostkiss type.
April 16, 2018 at 1:52 pm
Hi Carolyn – the hellebore photos are gorgeous, and I was sorry to miss the event as I was in the UK. But, I wonder if you could mention whether or not any of these new hybrids are fertile plants that set seed or if they are mostly sterile which seems to be the case with a lot of the newer hybrids. There is nothing bad with sterile plants, of course, but sometimes it’s nice to see the progeny come along in the garden too. I like self-sowers — like the snowdrops — that can make drifts over time and get into nooks and crannies of the garden I would never have been able to reach.
April 17, 2018 at 8:09 pm
Klaus, You bring up a good point. The Wedding Party series doubles and the Honeymoon Party series singles are the traditional “Lenten roses”, Helleborus x hybridus, given the official common name hybrid hellebores by the Royal Horticultural Society. This type of hybrid hellebore is fertile and produces seedlings. The Frostkiss hellebores are hybrid hellebores in the botanical sense as they are probably a cross between hybrid hellebore/Lenten roses and Helleborus x ballardiae, which is itself a cross between Christmas rose (H. niger) and Helleborus lividus. The Hellebore Gold Collection hellebores, which include ‘Pink Frost’, ‘Cinnamon Snow’, and many others, are hybrids between Christmas rose and some combination of H. lividus and Corsican hellebore (H. argutifolius). None of these plants have ever produced seedlings for me, and I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that they are sterile. I you want seedlings, then stick with traditional, nodding Lenten roses—they come in more exciting colors anyway. Let me know if this makes sense as it’s very complicated. Carolyn
April 17, 2018 at 8:30 pm
Thank you that does indeed help. I still wish you could find more to sell of the early blooming white H. Niger praecox that was so full of blooms when we visited to pick up the snowdrops. I’ve also noticed that species hellebores like H. Odoratus are now impossible to find which is a pity. I have one (from a mail order nursery) that is finally blooming nicely after a three year wait and was thinking of getting some more.
April 17, 2018 at 9:54 pm
‘Praecox’ is a great plant, but no one seems to grow it anymore. I sell many of the species hellebores, including H. odorus. Let me know by email which species you are looking for.