War of the Roses

Hellebore (aka Winter/Lenten/Christmas Rose)

First published in the February 2025 Grapevine, the newsletter for Yamhill County Master Gardeners

It is hard to underestimate the drama of being a tree, or any plant. Every one is an unimaginable feat of luck and ingenuity. Once you know that, you can’t unknow it. A new moral pocket has opened in your mind.

― Zoë Schlanger, The Light Eaters: How the Unseen World of Plant Intelligence Offers a New Understanding of Life on Earth

Telling a flower story is a delicate dance. The decision dilemmas of what to include and exclude can put an anthophile writer in a daze. Reading The Light Eaters, by Zoë Schlanger to start the year added to the drama. The YCMGA Propagation Team’s January book selection provoked pondering what the hellebores (heh·luh·bor) themselves would want the humans to know. 

Besides blooming in a rainbow of colors in the dead of winter, botanically speaking, Helleborus flowers are very special. They do not consist of petals, but of sepals. And those sepals evolved to produce nectaries (short tubular flower organs). The nectar is precious to the insects that stay active in our coldest season. It is a feast for native bees that emerge on warmer winter days. 

Belonging to the Ranunculaceae family, native to Europe and Asia, helleborus is a genus of about 20 species. These include the popular and well-cultivated Lenten Rose (Helleborus orientalis) and Christmas Rose (Helleborus niger). Other notables are the long-stemmed argutifolius with celery green blooms and foetidus with its slightly skunky odor and red-edged flowers. 

The leaves provide a quick clue to determining the species. Lenten roses have leaves that are basal and deeply, palmately-lobed. Christmas roses have leaves that are also basal, but deeply palmately-divided. The Stinking hellebore (Helleborus foetidus) has leaves that are deeply palmately-lobed with edges of short teeth. All three species can be seen in the Hoyt Abroretium winter garden. The display also has a mystery species called Unknown Hellebore – Helleborus ‘Cotton Candy’.

Hellebore sepals remain on the fruiting head until the seeds have matured. They remain striking, but undergo a chameleon color change to green after pollination. That shade stays until the seeds have matured. The green sepals carry a bonus boost of chlorophyll to help with photosynthesis. When the seeds are ripe, each follicle splits open from top to bottom to release the seeds.

I spent close to a decade admiring hellebores from afar. They are prolific in the Portland neighborhoods. The plants are a relative newcomer to the American garden. In the 1980s German and British breeders used Helleborus orientalis to develop many stunning cultivars. It wasn’t until the mid-1990s that American collectors caught on. 

Cultivating hellebore is a meticulous, time-consuming process. It can take 5-6 years for a plant to be of marketable size and in bloom. This helps explain the high price tags. But once established, one hellebore can produce up to 50 flowers per year. A worthy investment. That I made four times last February. Now that I see them successfully returning, I will be going back for more. 

Hellebore History

Many of the historic tales of hellebores are based not on their beauty but on their terrible toxicity. The genus name of Helleborus comes from Greek “helein” for injures or destroys and “bora” for food. Yikes. Fortunately those toxins give the plant a burning-acrid taste. A cordial warning. Few would unintentionally consume enough of the plant to be lethal.

The Light Eaters author frequently discusses the elaborate defense mechanisms deployed by plants. It’s made me much more aware that “deer resistant” or “fetid odor” could very well mean “people poison.” 

The renowned Greek physician Hippocrates is said to have harnessed hellebore extracts for “medicinal” purposes. The mythological physician Melampus was said to have observed the cathartic effect of hellebore on goats. He used the goat milk to cure the daughters of the King of Argos of a divinely inflicted madness. Hellebore continued to be used in the Middle Ages to purge the body of black bile. It was also mixed with vinegar to use as a mouthwash to heal toothache. 

The drastic and dangerous nature of hellebore was well known. According to the Greek geographer Pausanias, the ancient Phocian city of Krissa held out against its besiegers for ten years, until their enemies poisoned the city’s water supply hellebore roots. Hellebore poisoning has also been a suggested cause of death of Alexander the Great. 

My favorite tale involves Mrs. Maude Grieve, a 20th century English herbalist. She reported that powdered hellebore could be scattered in the air or spread on the ground and walked upon to render invisibility. I am fairly certain that I have stirred up my hellebore without disappearing. 

Hellebore Care

Hellebores are low-maintenance, evergreen plants. They enjoy shade from the hot summer sun but are enormously adaptable. In nature they come from the edges of woodland, and in scrubby land at usually high altitude regions of central Europe. Hellebores love to decorate the understory of deciduous trees and shrubs. It is the perfect mix of sun in the chilly winter and dappled shade in the sizzling summer. Hellebores are winter hardy in areas even at zone 4. 

Deer and rabbits will stay clear of hellebores. Aphids, slugs and snails will give them a try. There is even a “Hellebore Aphid.” I found one on the first bloom and now I am watching carefully. Hopefully this will be just a few early pinches and not an all out battle. 

The hellebore’s five, petal-like sepals persist throughout the summer and are very ornamental even when faded. Skip the dead-heading, especially if you would like the plants to self sow. In a year or two there could be all sorts of seedlings growing around. All hellebores form tight clumps of many growing points that expand via rhizomatous roots. As the plants emerge in early spring or winter, trim back last year’s foliage. Decluttering and adding a thin layer of dark mulch will give a better view of the new blooms. Be careful though not to accidentally cut new growth.

Hellebores have made their mark in the cut flower industry. For best results at home you’ll need some self control. Opt for blooms with forming or fully-formed seed pods. Those tend to exhibit greater durability. This is attributed to the transformation of the sepals into a rigid and waxy state as the seed pod matures. 

The sepals come in a wide variety of colors: eggplant, wine, peach, mauve, pale green edged in maroon, golden yellow, showy white or pink, dark purple (called black), or even double-colored selections. If you love to press flowers like me, then you’ll be thrilled also with the colors of dried hellebore. 

So what should we learn from hellebore ingenuity? The plants are a success story of peaceful defense and resilience. With little fuss hellebores will brighten the darkest of winter days and should be welcome in the home garden. But don’t take that easy-going nature as permission to war with these winter roses. You may end up stinky or sick. Every rose has its thorn even if you can’t see it. 

If you liked this article, consider subscribing to my very nonintrusive email list. You’ll get a message when a new article has been posted. Subscribe here.