Characteristics of the hellebore plant, how to plant a winter house and organize care for it in the garden, breeding rules, tips for combating diseases and pests, curious notes, species and varieties.
The hellebore (Helleborus) can be found under the name Wintering or Heleborus (which corresponds to its transliteration). The plant belongs to the Ranunculaceae family. The varieties included in the genus grow on the territory of Europe, especially their large number in the Mediterranean lands, as well as in the regions of Asia Minor, where the Balkans can "boast" of their greatest number. Hellebores prefer mountainous areas with shade from direct sunlight. The genus contains 14 species.
| Family name | Buttercup |
| Growing period | Perennial |
| Vegetation form | Herbaceous |
| Breeding method | Seed or vegetative (division of an overgrown bush) |
| Landing period in open ground | In April or early autumn |
| Landing rules | The size of the planting hole is 30x30x30 cm, and at least 30-40 cm is left between the plants |
| Priming | Heavy and clayey, rich in nutrients, with deep cultivation |
| Soil acidity values, pH | 6, 5-7 (neutral) |
| Lighting degree | Bright sun, partial shade or even strong shading |
| Humidity parameters | Regular watering, especially in hot and dry weather |
| Special care rules | Does not tolerate increased soil acidity |
| Height values | 0.2-0.5 m |
| Inflorescences or type of flowers | Single flowers |
| Flower color | White, yellowish-green, pale fawn, whitish or brownish-greenish, shades of pink, crimson, purple up to inky tones, there are varieties that have a two-color color |
| Flowering period | From late February to mid-spring |
| Decorative period | End of winter until April |
| Application in landscape design | In rockeries, next to fences or walls of buildings, in the foreground of mixborders, for cutting |
| USDA zone | 4–8 |
The genus of these representatives of the flora got its name due to the fusion of two words in the Greek language "elao" and "bora", which have the translation "kill" and "food", respectively. This is because the plant is very poisonous due to the presence of cardiac glycosides in its parts. But the hellebore has long been used as a medicinal plant, as mentioned in their writings by ancient Greek scientists such as Plato and Aristophanes, as well as Demosthenes. The name in Russian was appropriated by the German scientist-encyclopedist Peter-Simon Pallas (1747-1811). The naturalist was studying Russian vegetation at the end of the 18th century and was delighted with the properties of endurance of this representative of the flora. The plant is called "wintering" because it can start flowering in November or even January.
All types of hellebores have a long-term growth cycle and a herbaceous form. In the lands of their true origin, they are evergreens. The stems of the bush never exceed a height of 20–50 cm. The rhizome is thickened, but short, located horizontally in the upper layer of the soil. He has a large number of root processes that are long and with cord-like outlines. The root system is stained dark brown.
Shoots of Heleborus usually grow singly, simple, with weak branching. A small number of leaves unfold on them. The color of the stems is dark greenish, sometimes a reddish tint is present. The leaf plates are characterized by the presence of long petioles, they are concentrated in the root zone. The shape of the leaves is palmate or stop-dissected. The surface is leathery.
Single leaves, which are located in the area near the roots, have a width of 3–9 cm. Their shape is rounded-reniform, almost to the base there is a dissection into finger lobes. The edge of the leaf lobes is serrated. From above, the leaves are painted in a dark emerald tone, and their reverse side is lighter in color. When the foliage is young, its surface is pubescent. There are 1-3 leaf plates growing on the stems, their size is much smaller than the basal ones, and the dissection is less pronounced.
During flowering, which in the hellebore can begin at the end of winter and last until April, rather large flowers of regular outlines are revealed. Usually 1–3 buds are formed on the stem; when opened, their diameter reaches 5–8 cm. The flowers are solitary, crowning the tops of the shoots. The perianth has a simple or double shape, and the corolla consists of five or more broadly ovate petals. In length, the petals vary within 2-4 cm. The color of flowers can take on a white, yellowish-green, pale fawn, whitish or brownish-greenish hue. There are species in which flowers are characterized by shades of pink, crimson, purple up to an ink tone, there are varieties with a two-color color of the petals. When the fruit begins to ripen, the petals do not fall off. A large number of stamens protrude in the corolla, there are 3-10 pistils, the ovary is upper.
After pollination has passed, the ripening of fruits begins, in the form of multileafs with a leathery surface. There are 3-5 leaflets in the fruit, but their maximum number reaches ten. When mature, the leaflets are not spliced.
Heleborus is not difficult to care for and can begin to delight with flowering when other garden plantings are just beginning their active growing season.
Planting and caring for a hellebore outdoors
- Landing place the winter house should be selected in accordance with its natural preferences. So the plant will be most comfortable in shade, under bushes and deciduous trees, but not very thick shade. However, if it is not possible to provide such a location, then the bushes will grow in an open place, but with regular and abundant watering. It is necessary to carefully select a place for the Heleborus, since the plant does not tolerate transplants, and in one place it can successfully grow up to twenty years.
- Soil for hellebore it is recommended to select heavy and clayey, enriched with organic fertilizers (for example, humus or compost). Acidity is preferable 6, 5-7 pH, that is, normal. The soil can be with a small addition of lime, but the acidity values should remain within the specified limits. If species such as red hellebore (Helleborus purpurascens) or smelly (Helleborus foetidus) are cultivated, they will easily tolerate a poor and sandy substrate.
- Planting a hellebore. In the process of preparing the planting of seedlings or divisions of the wintering house, holes for this are dug with length, depth and width indicators of 30 cm, respectively. When there are many such bushes, the distance between them should not be less than 30–40 cm. The hole is half filled with compost, after which the seedling is placed in it, and the root system is gently straightened out in the hole. The root collar is positioned so that it is flush with the soil on the site. The plant must be supported with one hand, and the other must be filled with the prepared soil, which is then slightly squeezed and watered abundantly. For 20 days from the moment of planting, it is recommended to frequently and a lot of moisten the hellebore seedlings so that they can quickly adapt and take root.
- General advice on care. Be sure to loosen the soil next to the Heleborus bush after rains or watering. It is also required to regularly weed weeds. After the wintering house finishes blooming, it is necessary to mulch the soil around the bush using peat chips or compost that has decomposed well enough. Such varieties of hellebore as smelly (Helleborus foetidus) and Corsican (Helleborus argutifolius) have a peculiarity to suffer from winter frosts, therefore, they need to organize a shelter from spruce branches or dry fallen leaves. Especially old specimens with developed shoots need such protection. If you do not want to fight the Heleborus overgrowth, then the flowers should be removed before fruits are formed and even old foliage is cut off almost at the very surface of the soil.
- Watering such early flowering bushes should be carried out regularly, but if the weather is hot and dry, then soil moistening should be performed more often. However, there should be no stagnation of moisture in the root zone.
- Fertilizers for the winter house applied twice during the growing season. You need to use complete mineral complexes such as Kemira-Universal and bone meal.
- Seed collection Heleborusa should be performed from the beginning to the end of summer days. However, the seed pods tend to burst unexpectedly when ripe, and all the contents fall out onto the soil. If there is an interest in collecting planting material, then it is recommended to put on a gauze bag on the fruits of the plant and wait until the seeds spill out directly there. After that, they are sent to a dry room for final drying, where good ventilation is provided. As soon as the seed dries well, it is poured into paper bags. The germination capacity of wintering seeds disappears very quickly, so storage until spring is not recommended, but sowing immediately after harvesting is best.
- The use of hellebore in landscape design. Since the plant prefers semi-shady places, it can be used to plant greenery on the walls of garden buildings, houses and even fences. It is this location that will provide the necessary degree of protection against wind gusts. The best neighborhood will be shrubs and trees, which serve as an imitation of a non-dark forest belt. Species with a small shoot height can be used in rockeries. The bushes of the winter house will serve as a good decoration for the foreground of a mixborder. Since flowering is very early, it is possible to combine Heleborus plants with spring primroses, such as crocuses and snowdrops, pimula and lungwort, hyacinths and cyclamens. Since, for example, the spring-blooming erika is also characterized by similar budding times, the hellebore will make her a wonderful neighborhood. The delicate and large flowers of the latter will look great against the background of pieris and wolfberry inflorescences, as well as next to forsythia and camellias or rhododendrons.
If you want to decorate a dry bouquet with interesting flowers, then cut flowers of the wintering house are also suitable for this. When the growing region is very cold, the plant is suitable for growing as a room crop.
Hellebore breeding rules
In order to grow a new plant on the site, it is recommended to sow seeds or divide an overgrown bush.
Hellebore propagation by seeds
Hellebores grown in this way will delight with flowering only 3-4 years after the moment of sowing. You can grow seedlings or immediately place seeds in open ground. They are engaged in sowing at the end of June, then their stratification will take place naturally. Next winter, you can see the friendly seedlings of the winter house on the garden bed, but there will also be seedlings that can germinate only after a year. If there are purchased seeds and about 2, 5–3 months remain before frost, then they can also be sown, otherwise you will have to grow seedlings.
Hellebore propagation in seedlings
In order to get healthy seedlings in the spring, some gardeners are growing seedlings. With such reproduction, stratification is carried out in two stages: warm and cold. Seeds should be sown as soon as they are harvested - usually in the middle of summer. In a seedling box filled with loose, moist and nutritious soil (usually a garden or peat-sandy substrate is mixed with humus). The depth of the touchdown should not exceed one and a half centimeters. First, a container with crops is kept for three months at a heat level of 20 degrees, and then the container is placed on the lower shelf of the refrigerator, where the temperature is 0-5 degrees. If the crops are put in the refrigerator, then you can see how the shoots appeared a month later.
Seed care includes regular watering and inspection for mold growth. If dry storage is carried out, the hellebore seeds will gradually die. By March, the sprouts of Heleborus will appear from the soil, which, after they grow up and get stronger, and also acquire a pair of real leaf plates, can be transplanted into separate cups or into seedling boxes, maintaining a distance between seedlings of 20 cm. Some growers immediately transplant seedlings to a permanent place in the garden. The location for planting should be provided with shading. The seedlings will grow for another 2-3 years. Only in the third season, young plants can be transplanted to a permanent place in the garden and they will go through the rooting period, you can enjoy the flowering that has come. The transplant should be done in mid-spring or early fall.
Interesting
A species such as the stinking hellebore (Helleborus foetidus) can reproduce by self-seeding.
Hellebore propagation by dividing the bush
With this vegetative method of reproduction, the winter house will please with flowers much faster, while you only need to divide the bush, which has grown too much. To do this, select an autumn day or the first days of spring. When the flowering of the bush, which has reached the age of five, has ended, you can carefully remove it from the soil and divide it into several parts. To avoid decay, all cuts made with a sharp garden tool are recommended to be treated with crushed charcoal (if there is none, then activated charcoal is also suitable). The planting of hellebore divisions is carried out immediately in the prepared planting holes.
Curious
Experts recommend dividing the bushes of the eastern hellebore (Helleborus orientalis) in the autumn, while the spring is suitable for dividing the black hellebore (Helleborus niger).
After the cuttings are planted, abundant watering is carried out and then moistening will need to be performed regularly until the plants take root.
Important
Winters do not particularly like transplanting and after it can grow poorly for another year, the flowering process during this season happens that does not come. However, the dealerships will not die.
Disease and pest control tips for growing hellebore
The biggest problem when growing a wintering plant is waterlogging, which occurs due to melting snow, heavy rains and subsequent cold and damp weather. In this case, fungal diseases can occur, such as:
- Downy mildew, manifested by a grayish-whitish or gray-purple down, which is visible on the back of the leaves. But this is the last stage, which can no longer be treated. Initially, the upper side of the leaves acquires a mottled pattern of a yellowish tint, which later becomes brownish brown. For the fight, it is recommended to carry out treatment with 2-3% copper sulfate in the autumn period, during the flowering period with biological products like "Fitosporin-M". If you do not want to use serious chemicals, then you can process the bushes with a weak spread of potassium permanganate.
- Anthracnose, in which the formation of brown spots with a brown border occurs on the leaves of the hellebore, which begin to grow rapidly in size. In the final stages, the spots are decorated with a rim of a brown or dark purple color scheme and the plant rots. To solve the problem, spraying with Bordeaux liquid and other fungicides is used. If the problem is noticed in a timely manner, then antifungal agents such as Fundazol will come in handy for solving. When the platinum sheets have been severely damaged, then they must be cut off.
- Ring spot. Symptoms of this disease are brown-black spots on the surface of the foliage of the Cheleborus, with a barely visible pattern of rings. The leaves begin to hide with such markings, often of a rounded black color (the same lesions are found on rose bushes). All parts affected by spots must be cut off and burned, and then the hellebore is treated with copper-containing agents, for example, Previkur or Copper Oxychloride. Spotting can be carried by aphids, so it is important to prevent pests from appearing or to take timely measures to remove it.
Of the pests that bring trouble when growing a winter house, it is customary to distinguish:
- Gastropods: slugs or snails, which taste like the foliage of the plant. In these cases, you should use metaldehydes, for example, Meta-Groza.
- Aphids, if small green bugs are seen that suck nutritious juices. They are removed by spraying with insecticidal agents (Akterik or Aktara).
- Mice. Against such pests, you should scatter in the garden, for example, washing powder with a strong aroma, or use traps or means like Bagheera.
- Hop fineworm caterpillars, having a yellowish or pink tint. They eat up the root system and bite into tissues. In plants affected by such pests, the growth rate slows down. For treatment, treatment with the drug "Iskra" is used.
But, in spite of the indicated problems, Hellebores are quite resistant plants. But a problem can be created by a violation of the rules of agricultural technology, when the transplant was carried out carelessly or on an area of soil with increased acidity. For a simple determination, you can apply the following method: take a little soil (just a teaspoon) and pour it on the glass. Then it is placed on a dark colored surface and a little vinegar is dripped. If an abundant release of foam appears, then this is evidence of an alkaline reaction of the soil, with an average amount of foam, the soil is neutral, but if foam does not appear at all, then the substrate in the area is acidic with a pH below 5 units. To reduce acidity, it is recommended to mix the soil with dolomite flour, slaked lime or wood ash.
Read also about the fight against possible diseases and pests of anemones
Curious notes about the wintering flower
On the territory of Germany, having planted a Heleborus in a pot, you can use it as a gift for Christmas. This is due to the fact that in those parts of the world there is a legend about a little help who was very upset that he could not present gifts to the newborn Jesus and cried. The moment the tears touched the ground, a plant with beautiful flowers appeared in the same place. The boy picked them up and brought them as an offering to the Christ child. Since then, in European lands, the hellebore has been referred to as the "rose of Christ".
Folk healers appreciated such varieties of Heleborus as black (Helleborus niger) and white, today called the White Chemeritsa (Veratrum album) or "false hellebore". Hppocrates himself also used these poisonous plants for purification. And in ancient times, healers used the means on the black hellebore in the treatment of gout and paralysis, and even insanity.
Important
With hellebore poisoning, the following symptoms occur: dizziness, severe thirst and ringing in the ears, swelling of the tongue and larynx, vomiting, in which the intestines are cleared, the pulse will begin to slow down greatly and eventually collapse and cardiac arrest.
According to some legends, the death of the famous conqueror Alexander the Great occurred precisely because of an overdose of the remedy from the hellebore, when the treatment was carried out.
But doctors also used this poisonous representative of the flora to normalize metabolism, lower blood sugar and blood pressure. Preparations based on it have not only diuretic, but also bactericidal properties, can heal stomach ulcers, promote the removal of stones from the urinary and gall bladder, relieve the manifestations of migraine, rheumatism and radiculitis, also help with arthritis, osteochondrosis and are used as an anthelmintic.
There are a number of contraindications for the use of Heleborus, among which are:
- patients who have suffered a heart attack suffer from tachycardia and other heart diseases;
- children under the age of 14;
- women during gestation and lactation;
- patients with liver disease.
Types and varieties of hellebore
There are a large number of wintering varieties, but the following are most often grown:
Black hellebore (Helleborus niger),
which is the most famous and widespread species. Prefers in nature mountain forests, spreading from the southern regions of Germany to the Yugoslav lands. A perennial evergreen plant, the stems of which stretch up to 0.3 m in height. Large-sized flowers with corollas directed upwards open on the shoots. The width of the opening is 8 cm. The inner part of its pure white color, and the outside there is a delicate pinkish tint. The height of the flowering stems varies between 30-60 cm. The flowering process occurs at the beginning of April and at the same time stretches up to 14 days.
The foliage usually hibernates and has a dense leathery surface, its color is rich dark emerald. Cultivation of this variety began in the Middle Ages. It is distinguished by its high winter hardiness and the ability to withstand a decrease in the thermometer column to -35 frost. The most famous among this species are plants:
- Hellebore nigercors (Helleborus nigercors), which is easier to grow and has a branching stem and snow-white flowers that turn greenish during flowering.
- Hellebore nigristern (Helleborus nigercors) also has a whitish color of flowers, flowering falls from January to April.
- The following varieties are recognized as successful:
- Potter's Wheel the owner of the largest flowers in the genus, the petals of which are white and open to a diameter of 12 cm.
- HGC Joshua characterized by the earliest flowering, in which the buds begin to bloom in late autumn. The color of the flowers is white with yellow stamens.
- Praecox, flowering, which also begins in November, but the petals of the corolla are pale pinkish.
Caucasian hellebore (Helleborus caucasicus) -
a plant common not only in the Caucasus, but also in Turkish and Greek lands. Evergreen foliage has elongated petioles, the surface of the leaf blades is leathery. The length of the leaf is no more than 15 cm. There is a dissection into 5–11 wide leaf lobes. The flowers are attached to drooping peduncles measuring 20-50 cm. The color of their petals is whitish with a greenish shade or yellowish-green with a brown undertone. When opened, the flower reaches 8 cm in diameter. Flowers bloom from the last week of April to late spring or early summer. Differs in winter hardiness. Cultivation began in 1853. Most poisonous variety.
Abkhaz hellebore (Helleborus abchasicus)
begins to delight with flowering from mid-spring for 1, 5 months. The foliage is leathery and bare, painted in a dark emerald or greenish-purple color scheme. At the same time, the crimson-reddish peduncles stretch to a height of 30–40 cm. Drooping flowers open on them, the diameter of which does not exceed 8 cm. The color of the petals is dark red, sometimes there is a speck of a darker color. High winter hardiness, there are a variety of garden variations.
Eastern hellebore (Helleborus orientalis)
is of Caucasian origin, but can be found in the highlands of Turkey and Greece. An evergreen perennial that will not grow more than 0.3 m in height. Flowers are characterized by a purple color and can open up to a diameter of 5 cm. However, the plant is not resistant to fungal diseases affecting its foliage. The most popular varieties are:
- White swan or White Swan - it is clear that it has a snow-white color of flowers.
- Rock'n Roll characterized by flowers with petals, decorated with reddish-pink mottling.
- Blue Anemone or Blue anemone, differs in a delicate lilac tint of flowers.
- Lady Series possesses erect shoots and high growth rate. Peduncles stretch up to 40 cm in height. The flowers come in six different colors.
See also tips for the care of Aquilegia or Watershed.
Video about growing hellebore in the garden:
