The late garden writer Cassandra Danz, aka "Mrs. Greenthumbs," once wrote that all daylilies look orange from six feet away.  My college-age daughter says something similar about hellebores.  In her opinion all hellebore flowers look green from two feet away.

Both Ms. Danz and my daughter have a point.  A great many daylilies do look orange and many hellebores of the orientalis type have a definite green cast.  But in the last ten years, advances in breeding have changed the hellebore picture.  Now Helleborus orientalis hybrids are available in single and double forms and in freckled or unfreckled shades of cream, pink, rose, red, purple, nearly gray and, of course, pale green.  Breeders are working hard to produce cultivars with upturned rather than downward-facing flowers.

Unlike my daughter I love hellebores.  The white-flowered Helleborus niger, or Christmas rose, is the first plant to bloom every year in my garden.  Depending on the severity of the winter, I start looking for the first buds about now.  In fact, today when I pushed aside the wet leaves surrounding the hellebore I saw that the flower buds are already beginning to emerge.  When the buds get large enough, I clip one off, bring it into the house and float it in a small saucer of water for a little taste of spring.  Once the Christmas rose's flowers open, they last outdoors for about six weeks, slowly aging to pink.  The end of their bloom cycle coincides with the appearance of the first H. orientalis flowers.  While all of this is happening, the somewhat more subtle Helleborus foetidus or stinking hellebore brings forth its clusters of small, green, nodding blooms.  The plant is only "stinky" if its parts are crushed, so it is usually fine in civilized company.  

Hellebores are beautiful, deer-proof and comfortable in light to moderate shade.  Once established, they are easy to care for, though thorough mulching helps conserve the moisture they prefer.  Orientalis types tend to cling to their careworn old leaves, so clip them off in the spring to enhance the plants' looks and accentuate the flowers and new leaves.

As a lover of all things yellow, I have set my sights on one of the new generations of yellow-flowered orientalis hybrids.  I just hope it doesn't end up looking green from two feet away.  I'll never hear the end of it.