We sell only mature previously flowered Hellebore plants in 2 and 3 litre pots. This means we/and you can be sure of exactly what you are getting. Where we sell mail order out of flowering season then we accompany the plant descriptor with a thumbnail photograph of the actual plant when it flowered.
This means we can sell plants all year round and you know what you’re getting. We do not sell named plants as this is a fiction as they are highly variable e.g “Ellen” or “lady“ series - contravening RHS rules. Ours are better and you can chose in flower exactly!
A hellebore bought from one on line retailer given a named form and sold for £8. This is a less than 1 year old plug plant. There is no way of knowing what flower it will become and it will be another 1-2 years before it flowers.
The root ball is only 5cm deep.
This is a similar price to our 2 litre mature plant prices
A plant bought from another major mail order retailer. It was given a name and a promised colour and sold as a double form. It was described as a “young plant”and sold for £5.
It is a plug plant less than a few months old with its cotyledon leaves still attached.
It will be 2 years before this flowers and you find out if it is double and what colour it is.
General comments about plants and seeds
The hellebores are mature and ready to take off once transplanted into your garden. We have seen plants being sold online as a particular colour and form or even worse, a named variety and they they are unflowered 1-2 year old young plants that may be anything. As even when hand pollinated and carefully labelled there is variation between offspring from any given cross even a self cross.
We have found even worse still, many plants and seeds being sold as named forms/colours they are “open pollinated” so there is no idea of what they will be!
We only sell seeds between June and the end of August because fresh seed gives almost complete germination. Seed that has been allowed to dry out or is older than this goes into dormancy and may not germinate that year and may take several years to germinate if at all.
Our species hellebore plants are often 8-10 years old as some take that long to grow to flowering size.
Once they have reached this size they grow more rapidly and form clumps in the garden within a couple of years
These are 2-3 year old plants in 2 litre extra deep pots from our nursery. They will be ready for sale once they flower in about 2 months time.
We then photograph each one and number it to give it a “Passport” we can use to sell the plants even when not in flower and you know exactly what you are getting.
These are 10 month old plants from our nursery just about to be transplanted into 2 litre pots for growing on to sale size 1-2 years later.
The root ball is 14cm deep (hellebores have very deep root runs when allowed to grow). We do not sell them at this size.
All of our plants and seeds for sale are from hand pollinated crosses to carefully control the outcome.
All crosses are documented and analysed to study the genetics of hellebores.
Mike is seen here pollinating a blotch single.
A close up of the pollen being transferred to the ripe stigma.
Quality and value for money
These 3 photographs are shown with the permission of Julia Stanley who owns the copyright.