Irene Virag: Hangin' with hellebores, my best buds

I'm bundled up in a thick wool sweater and hooded parka on a late February day. Winter still grips the earth, and wind gusts topple a section of the already teetering fence along the driveway. I know - as my husband likes to say - that people in Iowa might find it a pleasant day, but this is the North Shore of Long Island and I'm searching my property for signs of spring.

Scattered hints signal the warmth waiting in the wings - yellow blooms of witch hazel and winter jasmine, fuzzy buds on the star magnolia, a tiny snowdrop near the mailbox and even three shy and drooping yellow daffodils advertising the drifts to come. And then I walk to the end of the front yard, and in a small grove by the river birches I see the clincher: sturdy buds popping out amid clumps of leathery evergreen leaves. The hellebores are coming.

I transplanted these gentle perennials last summer from the woodland garden of my friends Joanne and Fred Knapp, who were moving from Locust Valley to New Jersey. I do not take very much for granted in life or the garden and could only hope that my site and soil would be hospitable to the hellebores.

I didn't take off my jacket, but the sight of the buds warmed my heart. My spirit revived even further when I checked the clumps along the koi pond and under the Pieris by the sliding glass door in the bedroom and found them alive and budding.

Hellebores belong to the Ranunculaceae, or buttercup, family, which includes clematis, winter aconites, anemones and columbines. Most hellebores - there are 16 species - originated in the mountainous areas of the Balkans, although a Chinese species called Helleborus thibetanus also goes on with the show.

And no matter the cultivar, the show is lovely, ranging across the color spectrum from snowy white and blushing pink to soft yellow and dusty mauve. Basically, there are two kinds of hellebores: caulescent types, whose blooms and foliage spring from above-ground stems, and acaulescent, so-called stemless types like the ones alongside my river birches whose leaves and flowers grow directly from fleshy underground roots.

If you want to get botanical about it, the flowers are actually sepals. In most blooms, sepals enclose a flower when it's in bud and wind up as a small leaflike ring around the petals. But hellebores are different. The sepals become enlarged and look like petals, which is what hellebore fanciers call them. The actual petals are the small nectaries in the center of the flower, which attract pollinators. Most hellebores droop at a 45-degree angle, which is a matter of self-protection rather than a show of weakness. They're blooming during that late-winter-early-spring wild-weather season. If I had to get by outside in snow, sleet and rain, I'd put my head down, too.

Most of the hellebores that shine in our gardens are hybrid varieties of the acaulescent species orientalis, better known as the Lenten rose. Which makes sense because the six weeks of Lent are when they come into their own. The species niger is another famous acaulescent hellebore - you're more likely to know it as the Christmas rose. If you know your botanical Latin, you know that niger means black. The roots of Helleborus niger are black, but the flowers of the Christmas rose are waxy white and to my eye look more like camellias than roses, so go figure.

And perhaps it blooms around Christmas somewhere, but not in my garden. Legend holds that the flower sprang from the tears of a girl who wept because she had no present for the Christ child, but it's not native to the Holy Land. Miracle or mystery, you decide. If it grows in your garden, simply enjoy it.

Perhaps the best known of the caulescent species is foetidus, better known as "the stinking hellebore." I think the name is a bit of a stinker because the palm-frond-like leaves, not the chartreuse flowers, are what smell, and the scent is not all that terrible. To be safe, try not to rub or bruise them. And don't eat foetidus or any other hellebores - they contain alkaloid toxins, and in olden times they were used as purgatives, or poisons. That's why deer stay away from hellebores, which makes the flowers even more attractive to gardeners. The cultivar of foetidus that gets the most attention is Wester Flisk, which has red stems and slate-colored leaves.

Hellebores self-seed so freely that you may have to keep them in line. They're also self-hybridizers. You're likely to be delighted by new color combinations and spots, speckles and splotches showing up. I'm hoping for surprises among my clumps. Most varieties enjoy shade and they tend to grow best in well-prepared, alkaline soil, although they adapt to acidic soil. They like moist but not soggy environments.

As is the case with most flowers, breeders keep coming up with innovations, new cupped and open shapes and different colors. And many of the newest cultivars are propagated by tissue culture, microscopic cuttings that are hand-pollinated to produce exact copies or clones of the parent so you know that when the plant blooms next year it will look like the picture in the catalog.

I was attracted by a mix of doubles called Regal Ruffles in the White Flower Farm catalog. Their copy writers are great and liken them to "an Elizabethan court gathering." The blooms range from dark plum to lemony yellow. Ivory Prince, with pink-tinted green flowers and blue-green foliage, is another White Flower Farm entry that caught my eye.

And I think the Heronswood catalog has a winner in Phoenix, a new offering in its Bird series with petals that are Granny Smith-apple green edged in rosy red. Heronswood also features Painted Bunting with a bold burgundy star in the center of a white bloom with burgundy veins. I also liked slate-colored Starling with rounded petals, and Rosy Finch with delicately pink-blushed blossoms.

There are lots to choose from. Generally, hellebores live long and prosper. I walk around my garden in the cold and the sight of my hellebore buds warms me up. And a latte wouldn't hurt.

Write to Irene Virag at 1019 Fort Salonga Rd., Suite 10, #302, Northport, NY 11768 or email irenevirag@optonline.net. Visit her blog at www.irenevirag.com.

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