CAROLYN'S SHADE GARDENS

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 phone 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.

The pure white, outward-facing flower of Christmas rose, Helleborus niger

In the rush to seek out the newest and rarest hellebores on the market,  I am afraid that gardeners are neglecting to explore fully the wonderful qualities of the Christmas rose, Helleborus niger.  Christmas rose is a  species hellebore no garden should be without.  In addition, recently introduced cultivars have made this species a must have for gardeners seeking fall and winter interest.

The smooth, blue-green leaves of Christmas rose are pristine and beautiful and often have red stems

Christmas roses have been in cultivation for hundreds of years and are a very distinctive species hellebore with little variation in the wild.  They are native to woodlands and open areas of the central and eastern Alps in Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Slovenia, Croatia, and northern Italy.  They are about 9 to 12″ in height with a very woody root system.  The smooth, leathery dark blue-green leaves are deeply divided into 7 to 9 leaflets with irregular teeth around the tip.  If covered with snow, the leaves will stay pristine through the winter.

The buds of Christmas rose are quite ornamental

Christmas rose exhibiting its desirable characteristic of outward-facing flowers

Christmas roses have pure white flowers on upright fleshy stems.  The full, rounded blossoms are outward-facing and open flat with a width of 2 to 5″ and a bloom time starting anywhere from November to March, depending on the cultivar.  The flowers often age to shades of pink to red.  They make a very good cut flower.

Established Christmas roses produce an abundance of flowers

The flowers on Christmas roses often age to pink

Christmas roses prefer a well-drained site rich in organic matter.  High or dappled shade is best, and they seem to prefer the edge of beds.  Although they don’t like to be moved, they are easy to divide because their leaves and flowers are on separate stems.  Once they are established, all they need is a yearly mulch of ground leaves.  Christmas roses are usually found in areas with alkaline soil and several sources recommend applying lime, but I have never found this necessary.

The 3 1/2″ wide flowers of ‘Praecox’ Christmas rose in mid-February in my garden

There are several cultivars of Christmas rose that have enhanced the ornamental qualities of this already desirable hellebore.  The straight species blooms in the mid-Atlantic area of the U.S. in early March, after the hybrid hellebores, Helleborus x hybridus.  The Christmas rose cultivar ‘Praecox’ moves the start of bloom time up from March to mid to late January.  ‘Praecox’ also produces an abundance of flowers at a young age unlike the straight species, which can take a while to establish itself.

‘Jacob’ Christmas rose coming into bloom in my garden in November–its flowers are 3″ wide

Two more recent introductions from the Helleborus Gold Collection in Germany have moved the start of Christmas rose’s bloom time to November and extended it to May. ‘HGC Jacob’ begins blooming in my garden in mid-November, while ‘HGC Josef Lemper’ begins around December 1.  Both cultivars continue blooming into May.  For detailed descriptions of ‘Jacob’ and ‘Josef Lemper’, read my article Hellebores for Fall by clicking here.

The 4″ wide flowers of ‘Josef Lemper’ blooming through the snow in my garden in February

Although rarely for sale, I treasure my ‘Potter’s Wheel’ Christmas rose, a cultivar with huge flat, 5″ wide symmetrical flowers.  Although most ‘Potter’s Wheel’ is not true to type because it is seed grown, I acquired mine from Arrowhead Alpines, which vegetatively propagates their plants from the original ‘Potter’s Wheel’ in England.

The huge 5″ wide flowers of authentic ‘Potter’s Wheel’ Christmas rose

I hope that you will consider Christmas rose the next time you add to your hellebore collection.

Please let me know in a comment/reply about your own experiences with growing Christmas roses.

Carolyn

This is part of a series of articles on hellebores, one of the specialties of my nursery.  Here are links to the other articles:

Part One        Hellebores for Fall

Part Two       An Ode to Seed Strain Hellebores

Part Three   Christmas Rose: The Perfect Hellebore

Part Four      Dividing Hybrid Hellebores

Part Five       The Sex Lives of Hellebores

Part Six          Double Hellebores

Part Seven   Cutting Back Hellebores

Notes: Every word that appears in orange on my blog is a link that you can click for more information.  If you want to return to my blog’s homepage to access the sidebar information (catalogues, previous articles, etc.), just click here.

Nursery Happenings: I am currently accepting orders for snowdrops, including  mail orders.  For the catalogue and order information, click here.  I am taking reservations for my March 18 & 19 Hellebore Seminars.  For the brochure and registration information, click here.  I have a few spaces left for Charles Cresson’s Snowdrops and Other Winter Interest Plants Seminars.  For the brochure and registration information, click here.