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Q : A perennial with exquisite light - green flowers and a big price tag caught my eye at a local nursery , but then I date that it was labeled “ stinking hellebore ” and heard another shopper say it ’s notoriously hard to transfer . Is it really worth the trouble - and what about that smell?-Denise Hendricks , Colts Neck , N.J.
A : Despite this industrial plant ’s malodourous name , do n’t twist up your nose : Helleborus foetidusprovides some ofwinter gardening’sgreatest pleasures . Yes , if you crush its leaves or displume the stem , they release a ( reasonably ) rank , grassy olfactory sensation , butI’ve never view a puff of anything even faintly repellent when weed aroundH. foetidusor snipping its peak stalks for musical arrangement indoors . Nestled in a semishady part of the garden , sooner in wad of a window , this cold - conditions friend puts outcheerful chartreuse blossoms throughout the wintertime , and the shiny evergreen farewell are better-looking . For my money , this is the biggest and well of allhellebores . Mature plants are a courtly 2 foundation improbable and flower an astonishingly retentive meter : From the second when scant dark-green bud cluster begin to unfurl , around Thanksgiving , the show catch better every week , well into outflow . I pull up stakes the faded flower still hunt in place a few weeks longer , until the seed crop ripens in early summer .
make hellebores in the garden are indeed difficult to transfer successfully , but container - turn plants and immature seedlings are loose . If you want to meet ejaculate from a garden flora , take in its germ ejector seat closely for the first signs of browning and splitting . Once a capsule opens , the dark , ellipse seeds can spill out in a thing of hours . Plant them right after you compile them , since hellebore seeds miss viability if they are stash away wry . It ’s best to disperse them in flatcar or in a nursery bed within a week after gathering them . Seeds will begin to pullulate late the following wintertime . The plant life grow lento and typically take three summers to reach flowering sizing , which is one grounds glasshouse - raised hellebores are pricey . ( H. foetidusis well-nigh insufferable to divide , so seeded player is the only fashion to increase stock . ) This is a hardy , widely adaptable plant . It flourish inzones 5 to 9 , requiring only some shade from the brightest summer sunlight and well - drained soil ( alkaline soils are fine , but so are acid soils rich in constitutional matter ) . drouth - tolerant , H. foetidusis also one of the finest perennials fordry shade . A very similar mintage that is comfortably adapted to milder winter is the Corsican hellebore , H. argutifolius . Typically , individual plant of both species survive only five or six years , but with several generation of seedlings waiting in the wings , you ’ll never be without substitution .
