Gardening

By DEE BISHOP
Smith County Master Gardener

Let me introduce you to a fairly new arrival in Texas, Helleborus orientalis, or Lenten Rose. I have had them for about 13 years and never tire of them.

These lovelies grow in a bright shade garden with good well-drained, compost soil. They begin to bloom in February and are pretty for several months. Their evergreen foliage is lovely all year.

To see the blooms better, cut back the old leaves to expose the flowers. New leaves will come after bloom time. You need to prepare their bed well, because they will be there for many years and do not like to be moved or disturbed.

They will self-seed, and after a while, you will have a nice patch of them.

There are other hellebores, but orientalis is best for our area. The famous Christmas Rose (Helleborus niger) demands an alkaline soil and cooler summers than we typically have. Lenten Roses come in the loveliest colors: soft pinks, deep wines, mauve, green, and white and all shades of those. Some even have ‘freckles'.

I love to pick a stem of blooms to bring inside as they last a long time.

Go outside and turn their little faces up and study their structure. They are indeed lovely. They look so delicate, yet are tough as nails, taking our brutal summer heat without fail.

Hellebores are expensive to buy. They take three to four years to bloom from seeds and are very slow growing at first. It takes great patience to grow them.

If you will invest in at least one for your shade yard, you will be rewarded for many years to come, making the price of little consequence.

Dee Bishop is a Smith County Master Gardener who writes about what is blooming in Tyler Rose Garden

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