lenten rose, The

Southern Living, Jan 2001 by Askey, Linda C

Stunning new colors for a perennial favorite deserve a place in your garden.

Blooming in winter, Lenten roses push nodding buds through chilled soil to join the season's earliest bulbs. Unlike other flowers that fade within days, Lenten rose (Helleborus orientalis) stays colorful for several months. Not a rose at all, but an evergreen perennial, it blooms in subtle shades of white, pink, and rose that fade to green as spring progresses. Thanks to recent breeding efforts, their flowers are getting even showier. Lenten rose hybrids have graced the shaded beds of Southern gardens for generations. Gardeners treasure their winter foliage, early flowers, and seeds that drop and grow into seedlings for transplanting or sharing.

"You don't have to water or fertilize, and deer won't eat them," says Sam Jones of Piccadilly Farm in Bishop, Georgia, who, alongside his wife, Carleen, runs a nursery that specializes in Lenten roses. These plants' sturdy character and long blooming season have meant ever increasing popularity. They make a hardy evergreen ground cover in shaded areas. Naturally drought tolerant, they endure the summer, then put on a flush of new growth in fall and again after flowers appear in late winter and early spring.

With greater demand comes opportunity for nurseries to make improved selections. Judith and Dick Tyler of Pine Knot Farms in Clarksville, Virginia, started with the Piccadilly Farm Mix and continue making crosses and strains using Lenten roses they bring home from annual visits to England. Through work with this breeding stock, they have been able to offer the Ashwood hybrids, plants with more vivid and varied colors and flower forms. Exciting innovations include doubled and anemone-flowered blossoms, outwardfacing flowers, picotee flowers (a lighter or darker edge), brighter pinks and whites, and new colors such as green, yellow, apricot, and dark velvety purple.

Success with Lenten roses requires some advance planning. Here are a few guidelines to aid your endeavor.

Choose the right spot. Lenten roses need light shade and well-drained soil. Plants prosper from the Upper to Lower South and into Central Texas. North Florida and coastal gardeners need to provide full shade, fertile soil, and perfect drainage. Sam says that calls from customers who have lost plants usually reveal that they have used automatic sprinklers that kept the roots too wet.

Don't plant too deep. The crown of the plant should be sitting on the surface of the soil. If set too low, the plant will decline. Likewise, years of heavy mulching or a buildup of fallen leaves will have the same effect.

Give them a good start. Prepare the soil deeply. Work plenty of organic material such as compost, mushroom compost, soil conditioner, sphagnum peat moss, or rotted manure at least a foot deep into the planting bed. Also mix in a timed-release fertilizer at the rate recommended on the label. If your soil is acid, add a half-cup of dolomitic lime per plant as well. In winter every year after, sprinkle a handful of time around the plant.

Choose the right colors. Although the dark purple or slate (sometimes called black) Lenten roses are intriguing, they don't show up well in the garden. White flowers carry the best at a distance. Pink and rose colors add interest during a season when flowers are so rare.

Groom plants in small gardens. If your plants are close to a walk or terrace, remove any ragged foliage that has been damaged by winter. The flowers will show up better, and new growth will quickly emerge.

Editor's Note: You can see hellebores blooming and buy the colors you want on March 23 at Piccadilly Farm. Call (706) 769-6516 for details. Likewise, Pine Knot Farm opens its gates on February 23 and March 3. For information call (804) 252-1990 or visit their Web site at www.gloryroad.net/-hellebores.