If the garden shelters more than one cultivar of hellebore, the odds favor chance hybrids coming up from seed. The British secret of keeping hellebores going is a soil replete with coarse grit and a lot of humus, a combination that can also redeem our packed clay. Wolfe's recipe is a deep bed of Leafgro, a product of Montgomery County's leaf recycling program. At this time of year, we must carefully trim the old leaves, cutting close to the crown but avoiding contact with any of the flower buds. Hellebores are a lot more common than they used to be, but stinking hellebores often take some digging to find, so to speak.
Hellebores do poorly when crowded in by other plants or stuck in heavy clay.
To help them in offering the amazing feat of wintertime blooms, we must shelter them from the north and northwest winds, which not only chill the plants but also dry them out. Their roots need the insulation of several inches of mulch, such as shredded bark and chopped straw. As full sun or midday sun can scorch the plant's foliage, the best location for hellebores is dappled shade, and we must not allow them to dry out. News Jobs AP Shopping Archives Entertain.