Moving Hellebores

Hi All,

I have a lovely white hellebore in the front garden, which I would really like to move to somewhere else. I have read that they have deep roots and can be difficult to move. Has anyone had any experience with this? Any advice? I plan to wait until after it finishes its flowering this year, but is there any time that is best?

Cheers,

Dave

 

I've been told they don't like a move and will sulk for a year and then pick up. This fits my actual experience of moving one - and it didn't like the second move at all! It sulked itself to death unfortunately! Hope this helps! (P.S> it was a forced move the first time, at early summer - but it still picked up ok on the second year. The second move was in winter.)

 

Thanks - early summer was about the time I planned to move it anyway. It's not a plant I put in myself, so if I lose it I won't be devastated - but it is lovely to look at. esp. at the moment!

[ 03. April 2006, 03:51 PM: Message edited by: Dave_In_His_Garden ]

 

August/ September is the recommended time for lifting and division. Good item on cultivation and propagation here

I think Palustris is our resident expert though!

 

Dave,
helleborus resent disturbance, and can take 2 years to settle down, keep as much soil round the plant you are digging up, the best time to do this is autumn, or when just coming into growth in the spring.. summer is not recommended..I usually move any when the leaves start to drop off the trees, and never lost one yet..

 

Hi Guys, all good advice and much appreciated. However, I am more than a little intrigued by the following passage from that website link:

"Symptoms of hellebore poisoning include vomiting, delirium, convulsions and occasionally death."

I assume you would have to be either eating them or spending inordinate amounts of time with them for this to be a risk.. otherwise, maybe I'll leave them in the ground! Haha!

 

All the books I have say that the time to divide helleborus x orientalis is in March after flowering. And yes they do dislike disturbance.

 

Well, now I'm really confused!

Palustris, the plant is still very much full-flower so I assume I would at least leave it until that has finished? I may even try to work around leaving it in place if there's a good chance I will lose it :(

 

hi All,
it is possible to transplant in march, but only if it is not practical, to do it earlier.
the following is an extract from the 'RHS Encyclopedia of Gardening',1992 edition...
Transplanting established perennials.
most perennials may be transplanted easily if you wish to change your planting scheme. if possible move them when dormant in late autumn,
or when they are just coming into growth in spring, a few long lived plants, notably peonies, and HELLEBORES, resent distubance and take two or more years to establish after transplanting

 

talking of hellebores!!!Mine is in flower and has been for a couple of weeks. As far as I know it has never self seeded (unless i have weeded them out)and I have been told that hellebores only last a few years and this one is at least 6 years old. How do I collect seed from it. Will it naturally form some kind of seed pod or something or do I tie a bag around it when it starts to droop.

 

Look in the centre of the flower after finishing, if it has been pollinated you should see a set of 4 small pea pod like things (about an inch long to begin with, but as they develop they elongate).
I have a feeling that you may need cross fertilisation from another plant to guarantee good seed set though.

 

I had to move big clumps of them for buliding work, I had no alternative. I dug them up with loads of soil round them and put them in a nursery bed and just left them as I had too much other stuff to think about.

then last summer I moved them into new position and they look fine, they are still flowering, though I have to say the leaves looks tatty.

 

Have moved Hellebores in Autumn and also split them. The moves have always been succesful as long as you take a good deal of earth - the results from division were not so good in terms of flowering.

 

My experiences are a little different from some posted previously. Plants of Helleborus x hybridus and the acaulescent species can be lifted and divided at ANY time of the year with success. I don't think it matters to the plant when you do it. What will differ though is the degree of aftercare the plant(s) require. Obviously a plant lifted and divided in the height of summer will require much more care than one lifted and divided in the autumn.

When I'm out in the Balkans doing fieldwork on hellebores, I often collect hellebores to bring back, and these are lifted, all the soil is removed, the whole plant is then wrapped in damp kitchen towel and kept in a carrier bag. Some plants collected at the beginning of a trip can be kept like this for a week. When I get home, I pot the plants up and plant them out in autumn.

A plant collected from the wild will almost certainly suffer more damage to roots, etc. than one lifted from a garden border. I haven't lost one yet and I have collected dozens of plants so far.

The problem is that a few people have had bad experiences, which have been due to something they have done (or not!) when lifting and dividing hellebores, it has been written about in books, magazines, etc. and so now we end up reading that hellebores 'resent' disturbance, which simply isn't true. Why is it when a plant dies because of being moved, it's nearly always attributed to a problem with the plant?

It's a shame that we readily believe all we read in magazines and books written by so-called 'experts'. Remember that most of the articles written about hellebores haven't been written by hellebore specialists, but by horticultural journalists who are paid to write such articles. If they don't know about a particular plant, they research it, which doesn't work if what they read is wrong. And of course the journalist doesn't realise this as they don't know about the subject matter. And there lies the problem, and why we still have so much mis-information written about hellebores.

[ 05. April 2006, 08:45 PM: Message edited by: TimMurphy ]

 

Oh what words of wisdome Tim! Bring back common sense.