We’re joined by Susan from Shady Grove Gardens to talk you how to grow, care for, and hold hellebores as cut flowers. Susan has been working with flowers for 31 years, and she was kind enough to come and talk to us about how to take care of hellebores.
You’re in for a big treat if you’ve ever been mesmerized by the allure of the hellebore!
It was in the garden of my friend Foxie where I first noticed a hellebore. She owns Pharsalia, an incredible event space and flower garden near Tyro, Virginia. Although Foxie is well recognized for her peony collection, the truth is that she also has a ton of other fantastic collections.
Pharsalia’s flowers begin to bloom in the winter, and during my first season of working in the flower industry, she was only a short drive from my house. Foxie, I believe, contributed to my deep love of flowers. My excitement was stoked by that winter garden. She has a wide variety of hellebores.
I visited Pine Knot Farms in Clarksville, Virginia not long after seeing Foxie. I was allowed to look at Judith and Dick’s incredible collection of hellebores. I wanted to examine the bloom’s processing and vigor. The failure of hellebores as cut flowers at the time was generally acknowledged. They responded so nicely to my little dip in cool water processing that they made it not only back to Lynchburg but even up to Pennsylvania for my very first wedding. Since they weren’t really sold on the wholesale market at the time, I recall being quite anxious about being able to find the flower and having it stand up when I proposed the flower to the bride. My trial flowers held strong for two weeks thanks to their success, and the Pink Frost variety held up even better! I was very relieved to deliver those blooms to Anna and to have overcome my concern that they wouldn’t make a good cut.
They attracted interest and began to be easier to find on the wholesale market over time. They performed horribly when they were shipped, though. This has altered over time as post-harvest procedures have advanced, and I find that they ship reasonably well. I treat the flowers using the same methods, but local hellebores have a longer vase life. They’re simply superior than dahliaslocal.
Handling Hellebores
Fill the vase almost all the way up with hellebores since they thrive in deep water. As a result, pressure is created, which forces water up the stems. To prepare a fresh stem, either make a long diagonal incision at the base and then dip it in Quick Dip before inserting it into the full vase, or use an X-Acto knife to make small, gentle scoring cuts down the length of the stem to allow easy access to the xylem and quick water uptake.
Hellebores are fairly hardy once they’ve been cut, and you can even do it while they’re frozen! A plant may take four years to become established in your yard, but once it does, it will bloom from the beginning of winter until June, and as long as it is given access to a reliable water supply soon after being cut, it may be kept in a vase for a number of weeks.
Cut hellebores make excellent bouquets. Furthermore, Susan’s plants in the movie survived outside of a cooler for more than two weeks. Thirteen days after we recorded this movie (which was snipped a few days earlier), I used the images in my How to Photograph Flowers lesson.
The life of hellebore blooms is how long?
Helleborus niger cultivars feature sepals that turn pink after the flowers bloom white and last for several months at a time. Elizabeth Peters took the picture. Depending on the species or hybrid, this plant blooms from late November through the winter and into the following spring.
Can you cut blossoms from Lenten roses?
The cut flowers of the Lenten rose can endure up to two weeks or longer in a bouquet as long as you wait until the stamens fall off before removing the stem. A lovely method to display your Lenten rose flowers before the filaments fall off is, incidentally. Leave about an inch of stem on each blossom once you have cut it.
Can you dry hellebore flowers?
The display of Helleborus orientalis throughout the Honey Pot Flowers garden is especially remarkable at this time of year because so few herbaceous plants have winter blooms. As you stroll through the winter garden, turning over the huge, downward-facing blossoms to examine the wonderful patterning on the “petals,” these flowers, with their large blooms ranging in color from dark aubergine through pinkish hues to white, cause you to pause.
Hellebores’ petals, which are actually sepals, are not petals in the traditional sense of the word (modified leaves that typically protect the flower bud).
In all honesty, Hellebores are extremely low maintenance herbaceous perennials once they have established themselves. In our garden, they like the partial shade sections and freely sow seeds there. When fully grown, plants dislike being disturbed, but you can distribute seedlings across the garden by carefully transplanting them—digging them up with soil so as not to expose the roots.
If you wish to bulk out a particularly lovely specimen, you can also produce larger plants by division in the early spring. Your self-sown seedlings are not likely to match the color you expect (but half the fun is seeing how they will develop).
In order to showcase the blooms in the garden at their best in January, we typically remove the sad, decaying leaves at soil level. This lessens the transmission of disease and also exposes the blossoms. The summer months will be beautifully decorated by the summer’s fresh new leaves, which will grow again in the spring.
Hellebores are quite important for winter arrangements because there are so few flowers available in the first few months of the year. The flowers’ full splendor could not be visible because they are facing downward. Simply floating the flowers in water face up in a clear crystal glass bowl can create a magnificent display showing off all the diverse colors and fine markings for dining table, coffee, and side table arrangements.
It must be acknowledged that a lot of individuals find conditioning hellebores difficult. On the best way to handle this, there appear to be a variety of opinions.
Lushman and Armitage in “According to Specialty Cut Flowers, a vase can last 10 to 14 days. They propose that the stage of harvest is especially important for fresh flowers. Hellebores need to be harvested as soon as the stamens start to show. Flowers can be cut at any time, but when the seed capsules first appear is best for drying.
In Sarah Raven “The Cutting Garden recommends boiling the lowest inch of the stem for 20 seconds before submerging it in a large pot of lukewarm water. She claims that after this treatment, the stems would remain fresh for three to four days (considerably less however than the vase life offered in Armitage and Lushman).
Additionally, it appears that the recommendations for using “food for flowers Commercial growers in Armitage and Lushman have commented that “They have a fantastically extended vase life—10 days or more with ease—and I don’t give them any particular care beyond Floralife. As opposed to Linda Beutler in “According to Garden to Vase, floral preservative is not tolerated by Hellesbore blossoms.
We have found that Hellesbores are unpredictable when used as cut flowers. When we waited to cut the blossoms until the seed pods started to form, we were most successful. The flowers are much more reliable and durable at this stage, making cutting possible. The Floret Farm “This method is also advised by Cut Flower Garden, which also states that the blooms will remain fresh in the vase for about 5-8 days.
It could be claimed that using Hellesbores in “high stakes” situations carries a certain amount of danger. Although there aren’t many at this time of year, they are such gorgeous blooms, therefore it is definitely worth practicing to master your conditioning technique.
Hellebore flowers are available as fresh cut stems as well as dried flowers that can be used for wreaths, buttonholes, and corsages. They can be stored in an airtight plastic box after drying for two weeks after being gently covered with silica gel. If stored in the dark, they maintain their color well and can be left up until the following Christmas to give Christmas wreaths a unique flair.
Do not let them soak in the silica gel for an excessive amount of time in an attempt to overdry them. When removed, they will just absorb moisture and quickly go bad.
Although Helleborus orientalis makes up the majority of the plants in the Waverley garden, we also occasionally get Helleborus foetidus, the stinky hellebore. Smaller hanging bell-shaped flowers on a tall stem are produced by H. foetidus, and they give a very useful fresh green element to winter arrangements.
H7 (the RHS hardiness rating) Adaptable to the harshest continental European conditions ( -20)
Origin of scientific name: According to Witchipedia and Wikipedia, the Greek words elein, which means “to hurt,” and bora, which means “food,” are the sources of the genus name Helleborus.
Can hellebores be harvested for a vase?
The carpets of primroses, wood anemones, and celandines that cover the ground beneath the trees in the early spring make us long for them more and more each day.
As a result, I coaxed some twigs into leaf, cutting them as the sap started to rise in February and bringing them into the warm, to cheer myself up and make spring a reality, at least in the house. Horse chestnut, sweet chestnut, ash, apple, and oak are large-leaved trees that take the longest to emerge; therefore, you can pick them in March for flowers that will look lovely in two to three weeks. However, if you want vases for the first part of April, you must pick small-leaved species like hazel, hornbeam, dogwood, willow, or silver birch. Beech and the magnolia brigade’s unfolding flowers follow closely behind.
Forcing tree branches into leaf
Any tree branches that need to be forced should be removed, immediately submerged in deep water, and left in a location that is regularly warm, has some light, but is out of direct sunlight. It won’t work in a frigid garage or potting shed since the flowers will bloom just a week earlier than they would on the tree.
If you don’t have a place to keep them out of the way, don’t worry. You can observe how each species grows at a little different rate by placing your barren branches in a row on a shelf or mantelpiece, or in a jug on a table as a skeletal winter arrangement. They should turn into leaves three to four weeks earlier in a warm environment than they would if left outdoors.
Arranging branches with flowers
Simple early spring arrangements can be made in a limited area using cut flowers combined with branches of pushed foliage. The more delicate elements, like the crisp, blue Anemone blanda “Blue Shades,” go nicely with the incredibly young, bright green leaves of the silver birch, hornbeam, and hazel trees. Instead of combining them in one vase, place the anemones in one and the leaves in another to preserve the purity and clarity of the colors. This appears more vibrant all around. Place three of these on your kitchen table, or for a party, arrange five or seven vases with an assortment of flowers and foliage in between.
By creating a “boat” out of willow and dogwood, you may dress this up more. To enclose the row of vases, just tie some forced stems at the ends and splay the branches apart in the center. This seems to work well and only takes ten minutes or so.
Hellebores with stems
Cornus, or dogwood, is extremely valued. Try it with the red-edged Helleborus foetidus, which many of us grow in the shadow in our gardens, for an additional straightforward arrangement. I enjoy how the hellebore’s curves are a little bit more floppy than the cornus’ cheery uprightness with its sticks and little leaves. The two colors complement each other nicely, especially when the strange oriental hybrid hellebore adds a crimson-black splash.
Look for stems that have at least one seed pod starting to form when choosing which hellebore to pick. These are likely to remain longer in a vase because they have slightly more lignin in their cell walls than those that have just emerged. To extend the lifespan of all hellebores, the stem ends should be blanched in hot water for 20 seconds after cutting. Before arranging them, sear each stem, then submerge it in cold water and keep it somewhere cold and dark for a few hours.
Arrangements for parties
Try creating a larger arrangement with forced leaves if you’re hosting a springtime gathering (Mother’s Day, perhaps?). Branches can be formed into circles or ovals and strung for a few days on the wall. Even better, add some moss and create wreaths out of them. The stems will remain alive longer thanks to the moisture.
A fantastic table center can be created by combining forced spring leaves with their natural allies, such as sweet violets, primroses, or cowslips, especially if you use full plants straight from their pots rather than cut flowers. This has a huge impact for very little money (you can acquire all these plants from a typical garden center in the coming weeks), and it will all last for at least a month.
As inhabitants of woodlands, primroses and violets want to keep their roots cold and damp. Every three to four days, remove the plants from their moss bed in the arrangement and give them 15 minutes to drink from a shallow sink of water; the flowers and leaves will continue to grow.
Making a centrepiece
Find the largest tray—a round one is a good option—that you can fit on your table to create this arrangement.
- Two wire wreath bases that will fit inside the tray are required (I used 14in ones).
- Cover both of these in moss and use reel wire to secure it to the base.
- To form a woodsy circle, insert some silver birch twigs, then loosely bind them with extra wire (don’t bind it in too firmly because you want a messy nest). You might use the leftover wreath foundation made of Christmas moss, like I did, but first give it a nice soak.
- The first of your moss and silver birch wreaths should be placed on the platter, followed by the second.
- Add some forced spring leaves that are all pointing in the same direction to the top, twiggy silver birch circle.
- Up to the edge of the dish, cover the wreaths with moss.
- Finally, add cowslips or primroses to the entire composition while surrounding them with extra moss. It takes as much time as baking a cake, but it is worth it.