Plant Profile: Helleborus orientalis ‘Royal Heritage’

HELLEBORUS ORIENTALIS 'ROYAL HERITAGE'

DEER RESISTANT SHADE PLANT - LOW MAINTENANCE - BLACK WALNUT TOLERANT
zone 4
24 - 36" tall and wide
blooms: early spring to mid-May


Helleborus orientalis ‘Royal Heritage’ is one of our favorite hellebores and it is one of our grower's showcase plants:

"You always remember those plants that tell you that a long winter is coming to a close and that spring is just around the corner. The most memorable of these plants has to be Helleborus orientalis ‘Royal Heritage’, a great selection of the Lenten Rose that every gardener with a strong desire for spring weather should grow.

Hellebores are a group of plants that have been known to gardeners for many years but have not been the easiest plants to come by mainly due to propagation issues. ‘Royal Heritage’ is a breakthrough in this area due to its relative ease of propagation. Even better, this selection is remarkable in its ability to bloom over a long period of the late winter and early spring while providing an array of colors that will melt the chilled heart of any gardener.

Tough and tolerant with Zone 4 hardiness, ‘Royal Heritage’ presents a formidable profile in the garden with 24” height and a 24 – 36” spread of dark, lustrous, deeply lobed evergreen foliage with serrated edges. Its vigorous nature carries through to its strong flowering habit as a multitude of buds emerge at the first late winter or early spring mild spell ready to open up at the first hint of sustained early spring warmth. When those buds open, your heart will be warmed to the melting point by the nodding, 1.5 to 2” diameter flowers that span a range from white to pastel pink to red to nearly black in color. This amazing rainbow of bloom continues through the early spring and into mid-May.

‘Royal Heritage’ should be in everyone’s garden, after all, who isn’t in desperate need of some landscape color at the end of a tough, brutal winter?? This selection is quite easy to grow needing a partial to full shade spot in the garden, moist, well drained soil, and a good layer of surface mulch to keep it happy and ready to signal spring’s arrival. Plant some today and let ‘Royal Heritage’ be your lasting memory of the joys of spring’s arrival." -from Prides Corner Farms

Winter Plant Profiles: Planning for the Spring

Gardening success is often less about the work you do after a plant goes into the ground, and more about the thought and planning that happens before a plant is purchased. We wanted to take some time this cold and quiet winter to share some of our favorite plants, as well as the conditions in which they thrive.

We will organize the profiles into the same categories that we organize our nursery: Sun, Shade, Deer Resistant Sun, and Deer Resistant Shade. Within those categories, we will highlight other characteristics, such as wet-tolerant plants for uses in marshy, stream side areas, salt-tolerant plants for roadside locations, and we will also highlight low-maintenance plants (work horses of the garden that thrive on neglect!)

Hopefully these plant profiles will give you lots of ideas on how to fill in or fix up problem areas on your property, maybe we will introduce you to a new plant that inspires a winter plan for new garden bed come spring - dream of green, while the world outside is covered with a blanket of white.

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