Hellebore Christmas Rose | Garden Designer

I love the Hellebore Christmas Rose. These herbaceous perennial plants are fully hardy in temperate zones, flowering in your garden through the snow, ice and rain; from early December through to April. The Christmas Rose – Helleborus niger – flowers at this time of the year, hence its most usual common name. The flower shape is similar to that of a simple rose, although the hellebore is a member of the buttercup not the rose family.

Common names are the non-botanical Latin names given to a plant and frequently vary from country to country and region to region. Hellebore Christmas rose is also known as bears foot, black hellebore, Christmas plant, Christ’s herb and St Agnes’ rose.

Before we get onto the reasons why Helleborus niger was so-named, let’s look at its garden worthiness or why you may like to add it to your festive pots and flower borders.

The Hellebore Christmas Rose now comes in a range of varieties and cultivars to suit most tastes and garden styles. The classic dark green evergreen foliage with a glossy tinge gives a perfect foil to the white flowers; ‘christmas carol’ is a good variety. Alternative varieties offer white veined leaves and flowers tinged pink; for example, ‘winter moonbeam’.

These hellebore varieties are small, low growing and as hellebore flowers droop down, planting them in tall pots near to a door means you’ll be able to appreciate them. Mix the planting with white cyclamen for a chic, modern look; or with bright red cyclamen for a more Christmassy mix of red, white and green.

Helleborus niger is poisonous, and has been used as a purgative in previous times, on both humans and domestic livestock. However if too much of the root, which contains glycosides, is ingested, it can be fatal.

Some other names for Hellebore Christmas Rose

Back to those common names and why they might have been given to the Christmas rose. The ‘niger’ in Helleborus niger refers to the black root of the plant, being the Latin for black, whilst ‘bears foot’ refers to the shape of the leaves.

The common names ‘Christmas plant’ and ‘Christ’s herb’ derive from the fact that the Christmas rose flowers at, um, Christmas. Gerard describes it so in his herbal in the sixteenth century:-
“it floureth about Christmas if the winter be mild and warm [and is] called the Christ herbe.”

It has been suggested that this particular Hellebore is also known as St Agnes’ rose as the flower is the symbol of St Agnes, whose day falls on January 21st. it would have been flowering then, of course, one of the few plants that were. Helleborus niger is native to most of Europe, including Italy where Agnes lived.

and finally…

On a final, helpful, gardening note – if you’re bothered by deer and rabbits eating your precious flowers and border plants, then consider Hellebores, as the aforesaid beasts do not like eating them! For National Collections of Hellebores and Hellebore Open Days you will need generally to wait until February, but most winter gardens have a fine display of hellebores in the snow.

And for those of you who like Christmas – why not download our eBook “Christmas and Yule in Your Garden“?

Or if you’re looking for a Christmas gift with a difference, why not ask about our bespoke Gardening Lessons, where your classroom is actually your own garden? We can help with both gardening basics and more ‘expert tasks’, carry out worm and other experiments and for example, also show you how to plan a wildlife friendly ornamental border.

For further gardening advice and inspiration, check out Plews Potting Shed blogs, including the selection below and our monthly Tipsheet – You could come and find us on Instagram Pinterest and Facebook too.