Gigi, Its me again, you know, the old guy from down the road a bit.

Yesterday I took a road trip with a group from my church. We journeyed to Clemson, and toured the SC Botanical Gardens on the university campus there.

I highly recommend the trip...admission is free, unless you have a group, and do a guided tour, then I think they charge like $4 per person. A large number of the plants have labels in place, so a self guided tour works great.We had the tour, and I must say it was very educational. For you, I am sure it would be the same.

Since you are concerned about what to plant Helleborus around and near, let me tell you that the garden at Clemson has them planted in, under, and around everything you can imagine. They use them for filer plants, and any place they have an empty spot with a bit of shade, they stick one or more Helleborus.

Now, as for size, attached is a photo I just took of one of my mature plants that is planted by itself under a Camellia bush and a Weigela. As you can see, the leaf spread on this plant is, for all practical purposes 3 feet. As I remember, the plant when planted was overgrown in a 2.5, or 3 inch pot. From planting, I think it was about 2, or 3 years to blooms. Once they begin to bloom, they do not grow quite as fast, but they do continue to grow. I suspect the one in the photo has been in place 8 or so years.

Hope this helps.

Bill

Not the best photo, but thought the yardstick might help.

Thank you for the guidance. I planted them this weekend and now I am concerned that they are in too much sun. The growing info said Partial sun so I planted them where I think the Japanese maple branches will end up shading them next year but now they are getting sun from about 11am to 3pm. Although this probably is not too many hours I know it is in the hottest time of the day and I am worried they will not thrive. My only option is to move them further under the JM so they will be shaded (dappled) now and hope that they spread outward as they mature or transplant them further out as both they and the JM grow. What do you think? Leave them in the 4 hours of sun? Move them to more shade knowing I will have to move them again in a year or so? I do not have any other options as this is the only shady spot I have in my garden and I really want them to be in this bed. One other question, since the JM will not have leaves on it when they are in bloom will this be a problem in the late winter when they are in bloom - 4 or so hours of sun from 11-3? Thanks for any advice!

I'm not sure how the notion hellebores are shade lovers became established. But it's not correct. Hellebores are merely shade tolerant and actually grow very well in a fair amount of sun. And some species actually prefer being in sun.

While most of today's modern hybrids are light years away from the species plants, they do carry those genes and if you research how and where the species grow in the wild, the vast majority are not located in very shady locations but most often in very open meadows, rocky, scrub areas and at the edges of woodland verges. IOW, where they get a lot of sun. There is no reason to assume today's hybrids are not as tolerant to these open sites as their distant parents.

I would leave them be, both for the sake of the hellebores and to reduce any root disruption with the JM (which will NOT appreciate it).

gardengal, I had hoped you would chime in. With your advice and Bill's I feel confidant to leave them where they are. Thank you both so much!

I did some spring cleaning on my MIL's backyard buy cutting down a bunch of tall skinny trees that I always thought was deeply shaded and planted about 20 bare root hellebores in June. They totally baked in that sandy loam which was only hand watered with occasional showers during the summer. The leaves looked terrible, but now that the weather has cooled down and it was stayed fairly moist, they seem to be flushing out an amazing amount of new leaves, although I thought they leaf out after flowering. The ones that dont get any direct light have pristine leaves but not much new growth.