Hellebore Heaven

Welcoming spring in our magical garden...

Anyone who knows me well knows that hellebores - also known as Lenten roses - are my favorite flower of all, a hard title to claim given the ridiculous abundance of exquisite beauty that explodes all around Maryland come spring and summer. But I was lucky enough to move into a house eleven years ago that already had a yard full of these lovely, mysterious flowers, and even though they were new to me at that time, I quickly fell in love.

[Aside: My kids have teased me forever about how I observe and adore and wax rhapsodic about the world of flowers. Such a bout of teasing led to this exchange with Annie, who was six at the time:

Annie: “Mama, you love flowers!”
Me: “Yes! Is there anyone who doesn’t love flowers?”
Annie: “Colin.”
Pause.
“He’s a dark person.”]

Over the years I have observed my hellebores closely; gotten down in the dirt with them to prune them and photograph them and marvel at their beauty; I’ve watched them spread through my flower beds on their own and have moved them too (with gratitude for their hardiness) when I wanted to fill a bare spot here or there; and I’ve carefully transplanted and tended the particularly stunning specimens given to me as cherished gifts. And over the years they have never disappointed.

It is hard to decide what I love most about my treasured hellebores. It could be that they are always and unfailingly the first flowers of spring, emerging far sooner than one might think safe for such delicate blooms. Every single February I walk outside one day and just get knocked over by their sudden abundance. Pruning them reveals infinite numbers of emerging shoots unfurling their tentative wrinkled heads, and shyly showing their new buds, each one a poem about spring’s bright promise.

Or maybe it’s their resilience and fortitude, as not only do they brave the last harsh breaths of winter, but they continue to bloom and bloom and bloom, long into summer, in sun or shade, good soil or bad. Two marvels, birthday gifts I received in January of 2020, bloomed all year long, right up into this past winter! I like to think they understood how badly I needed their joyful offerings in this terrible pandemic year.

Or perhaps it is their mind-blowing rainbow of hues, and the fact that every single year I find new varieties, new shades and shapes, new combinations of patterns and colors that I swear I’ve never seen before. Or how one single plant can put forth flowers of different complexions, or how a sweet pink blossom, on close inspection, can reveal an intricate network of garnet veins, and a starburst of scarlet freckles inside, with pale pink anthers waving on delicate green filaments. (Do I sound giddy? I am! I am!)

Or maybe it’s how, now that my girls are old enough to help me prune the hellebores, we spent a dazzled afternoon a few weeks ago, snipping and clearing and shouting! and exclaiming! and calling each other to looklooklook! as each new wonder emerged. “We have a magical garden!” they repeated over and over, as their efforts revealed a tiny pale bud lit by sunlight under the evergreen hedges, or a wide patch of baby plants all pressing up from the earth as if they too could feel the blessed sun on their heads, or a mass of unfurling tea-green leaves that only appeared once the heavy old leaves were cut and carried off, or a delicate, drowsing bloom that could be lifted up to reveal exquisite artwork within…

Probably it’s all of it, given how my heart feels when I’m outside among my hellebores. And probably, now in particular, it’s all of it plus the desperate, mad need I feel (we all feel!) after this bitter year, for our first taste of spring. For so long now I’ve been waiting for life to get better, for the roadblocks to my happiness to clear, for the hard things to get easier. And at the same time I’m scared to hope for kinder days, and trepidatious that what’s hurting now will hurt always. It’s like how all the way to my first vaccine appointment I couldn’t let myself believe that it was finally going to happen, and all the way home I felt lightheaded with excitement and relief (and may that feeling come for each and every one of you soon soon soon…). That’s how the hellebores made me feel this year as I waited for their blooms - fearful that this might be the year they never opened, dancing among the stars when they did.

There’s not a lot of folklore I can find about hellebores, unlike many other flowers. (My daughter Annie - Amarantha - for example, is named for the flower that grows by the Tree of Life in Milton’s Garden of Eden.) And the tales I have found are pretty dark, probably because hellebore is extremely poisonous, with a name that comes from the words for “food” and “harm.” One story I liked though, concerns the daughters of the King of Argos, who were bewitched by the god Dionysus with a spell that sent them running naked through the city. The healer Melampus of Pylos cured them with hellebore, and after it became known for a time as a remedy for perverse thoughts and habits. (Please do not try this at home! No matter how perverse your thoughts…)

My older sister is an experienced naturalist, and she is serious about chronicling the signs of spring around her home in Maine. She knows the bird signs, and the animal signs, and the plants signs too, and originally I told her I wanted to write a post on signs of spring, with her help. That plan went out the window on the magical day when we pruned the hellebores, and I realized that I could write an entire ode, a book, a series, all about this one beloved flower. So here is that ode, my friends, and a garden of photographs as well, to peruse at your leisure. (And if you are in town, stop by and see my hellebores. I promise you will leave smiling.)

Wherever you are, may spring surprise you this year with wild beauty, like a sharp, happy needle of hope.

(All of the photos here and in the shared album are mine; every picture was taken in my yard.)