They always manage to lift the spirit in late winter when their flower spikes appear. The flowers have a wide colour range too. There are also spotted flowering forms and semi-double forms too. Cultivation Helleborus, also known as the 'Christmas rose' or 'Lenton rose', are tolerant of a wide range of soil types, providing that they are not very dry or waterlogged. They appreciate liberal amounts of humus when planting to retain moisture in sandy soils and to provide drainage in clay soils.
Most hellebores prefer a neutral or alkaline soil.
They like shade from the midday sun, but will fail if planted in too shady a site, flowering sparsely or not at all. Hellebores are tough and will withstand European and North American winters without any trouble, with the exception of Hellebore lividus and some forms of argutifolius which might succumb to any hard winter. At flowering time, it is best to remove the old leaves from all the H. orientalis hybrids , which by this time are looking torn and battered. This enables the flowers to be shown to advantage and also reduces the risk of fungal diseases being past on. We'll be looking at six members of the family of helleborus that flourish in the garden.