The Christmas Rose
There is a European legend about a poor country girl named Madelon. Led by shepherds, she visited the Christ child in Bethlehem. An angel saw her weeping because she had no gift to give the newborn. The angle touched the ground with a lily. A plant, the first Christmas rose, bloomed at that spot. Madelon picked the flowers and presented them to the baby Jesus.
Christmas roses neither bloom at Christmas, at least here, nor are they roses. However, they are great plants for lightly shaded gardens. Their green to maroon flowers bloom with the spring bulbs, often shortly after the snow melts. Botanically, the plants are Helleborus niger, also called the black hellebore for the color of their roots, and are part of the buttercup family. This species is native to Europe, but other species come from Asia.
The first Helleborus I grew was a gift from a garden club friend in Missouri. When the blossoms emerged in early March, I was hooked on the plant. It was H. orientalis or the Lenten Rose, and although the foliage stayed green through the winter, it was pretty ragged by spring. Mine bloomed in nearly two-inch wide green and maroon speckled flowers. The shabby foliage was soon replaced with new leaf growth. It would probably grow about the same here. Most Lenten roses are crossbred species, also known as H. x hybridus.
In the last decade Helleborus have received a lot of interest from growers, their hybridizing efforts have produced some beautiful color combinations in white, cream, green, purple and maroon. Gardeners must beware because all parts of the plant are poisonous. Helleborus comes from the combination of the Greek word elein, to injure, and bora, food. Ancients used the plants to cure the interesting combination of diseases of insanity and lice.
Both Helleborus niger and H. orientalis are hardy to zone four, but will probably survive the winter better covered with a mulch of pine boughs or other loose mulch. You might want to try the green flowered H. foetidus, the Barefoot Hellebore, sometimes known as the Stinking Hellebore. Stated as hardy to zone five, it might survive here in a sheltered spot. Remember to remove any mulch on these plants in early spring.
These are long-lived, undemanding plants, although they do require some shade and moisture with neutral to slightly acid, well-drained soil. Although Helleborus can be grown from seed, it is a difficult process and plants are readily available for purchase locally. That said, I have found seedlings growing near my plants. Helleborus niger and H. orientalis can be carefully divided just after blooming to increase plants, but H. foetidus are very difficult to transplant because of their root structure. They don't need to be divided, growing happily and expanding in one spot for many years with little trouble other than an annual addition of organic matter if you get around to it.