DIY: Cutting and Maintaining Hellebores
Photography by Mimi Giboin
Which hellebores last longest as cut flowers?
Conventional wisdom states that a mature flower--one with a visible seed pod that has dropped its stamens--will last longer.
In an immature specimen, a yellow fringe of stamens is surrounded by small, ruffled petals.
Here, a mature flower is identifiable by its seed pod and sparser petals.
Hellebores should be cut at the base of the stem.
Will some Helleborus cultivars last longer?
To find out, we decided to cut a selection of hellebores cultivars to compare.
Just-picked hellebores
We began by preparing the flowers for their vases
Results:
After conditioning and adding hellebores to their vases, we found that...
The hellebores cultivar that lasted the longest was 'Merlin'.
Many of our other cultivars began to droop after one day.
Purple hellebores of all varieties had staying power.