Hellebores are beautiful and bullet proof plants which, according to AI, require 95 to 97% less maintenance than most other perennials. Today, 27F and sunny, was the day I gave them that 3 to 5% of maintenance which, in my opinion, they need–the late winter cleanup. Yes, I know there are people—even some I used to respect—who feel that you should not clean up your hellebores. They will tell you to leave the spent foliage, upon which the new flowers will perch when they emerge. They earnestly and perhaps prudishly believe that the flowers look a little weird and unseemingly suggestive when they stretch out in late winter with nothing to cover their alluring legs, and last year’s foliage, tattered though it may be, is just right for the job. Me? I don’t mind exposed legs. Not at all. But I do mind watching old, pocked, mottled, foliage suffer and die.
What some would call a leggy looking hellebore I call fabulous!
Year old foliage.
Last year at this time, I was in constant pain and could barely move. I had, if I wanted it, the perfect excuse to let go and take a one-year break (and a few less oxy) and just let those long hellebore legs hide behind those skirts of the pocked, mottled, suffering, and dying foliage that some people find so appealing. But I didn’t. I couldn’t. So I went online and bought a cheap tool that looked like it wouldn’t be stout enough, but, if it were, would be perfect for the job. Turns out, it was stout enough and, indeed, perfect for the job. And if I was medicated just right, I could cut back the hellebores in short spurts standing up, and thus not suffering and possibly dying myself. That tool (Fiskars Grass Shears, Long Handle, 36″) looks like this:
This year I’m feeling much better (knock on wood) and found that this tool—even for able bodied people—is still worth using. In fact, I ripped through my 6,742 (give or take) hellebores in less than two hours. And it was a damned good thing I did! This winter has been exceptionally cold and I thought I still had plenty of time to get outside and cut my hellebores back. But, to my surprise, more than a handful were already pushing new growth. With the upcoming week of warm weather they’re forecasting, every last one of my hellebores would soon be sending their luscious legs skyward and the surgical precision needed to remove all that pocked, mottled, suffering, dying (and modesty-providing skirts) without damaging the flowers would take at least 537 additional hours of tedious labor (give or take).
If you look hard enough, you can just see new flower buds amidst a winter’s worth of mess. Imagine extracting all that spent foliage once these new shoots entangle themselves through last year’s stems.
Cleaned up, and just in the nick of time!
And I’m just not a surgical precision kind of guy. There are people who have the time and mindset to garden as garden writers say you must. Good for them. I’m sure being that persnickety makes them feel just great. Superior even. And staying engrossed in such time-consuming tasks helps keep them out of trouble. But me? Nope. I don’t have time for that, nor the patience if I did. I garden like hell. Most of what little deadheading I do is done with a string trimmer. I spring clean some of my garden beds with a lawn mower. Sometimes, when the fire truck passes on its way to a gas explosion or some other big disaster, knowing the fire marshall will be busy for a while, I set my grasses ablaze. This is how I garden. And I very much enjoy having some free time for getting into trouble.
Clean up in aisle five.
And this tool, whatever they call it, gave me that time. And it didn’t do the job any better than it had to, either. Every stem I cut was a different length. And they all stuck out oddly in every direction. Some of the cuts were raggedy. Actually, most of them. And some of the pocked, mottled, suffering, and dying leaves wound up still on the plants because they’re hard to spot when you work hastily and it’s impossible to prevent unless you go back afterwards and remove them. A fussy gardener would break out in hives just by looking at the job I did but I was just fine with it. And I also know that no one will be looking at my garden, including probably me, until such time as the leggy flowers sprout forth, and, when that happens, everyone in their right minds will be looking at the flowers. Only the insane will be looking for vestiges of shoddy work underneath them. And, besides, that time period of beautiful flowers and leggy legs is quite brief. Quite soon, fresh new leaves will come spilling out, covering everything and anything that doesn’t look like a plastic rendition of a picture perfect cut back perennial.
A follow up round with a blower goes a long way. This is from a previous year. The current garden will look like this. Soon. Or soon enough anyway.
I’m not really one to judge, but this scene from someone else’s garden could use just a little more effort. That, in fact, is all it would take.
Ultimately, it was amazing how quickly things were almost finished and I was out of the cold. Nothing like the satisfaction of a job adequately done, especially knowing it happened with such ruthless and reckless efficiency. And then, of course, it was time for a beer. Yep. But, then… What the hell? What do I see outside my window? My wife cleaning up my cleanup! Well okay, I guess. Time to for another beer. Or two.
All the charm and glory, yes glory, of a stunning hellobore blooming in very early Spring.
Hi, Scott! I garden in a cold CT zone 5 with lots of deer and rabbits. They eschew hellebores so like you, I have tons of them acquired from my days at White Flower Farm. And like you, I used to dead-leaf them in the spring when the snow and ice finally disappeared. The only problem is I invariably cut off some flowers accidentally. So I experimented one season and removed the foliage in late fall. The bare spots were a non-issue. And voila! They are so bulletproof that they just came back strong and healthy, and I lost no more flowers. BTW, I also use the same tool you do. I first got it when everyone was concerned about Hosta virus X and Iaboriously cut them all back in the fall. I don’t do that anymore but I sure wouldn’t miss cutting the hellebore foliage in late fall — it’s a winning improvement over my past practice of spring cleanup.Nice work!
I’ve been tempted to cut back in the Fall but I value the evergreen foliage too much to do so. For me here in Z6, the foliage only begins to go bad around Christmas. And because the new growth can emerge anytime from about then to mid to late January, depending on the weather, I start itching to get the job done right around New Year’s Day.
Scott, to be clear, this treatment is perfect and preferable for H. hybrids hellebores and the species who compose these hybrids. However, you should never cut H. niger or any hybrids containing this species until after the new leaves have emerged. And I hope it goes without saying that the stemmed hellebores like H. foetidus, H. argutifokius (and its hybrids) should not be cut.
Colston, I wrote this with H. orientalis and its hybrids in mind. I should have stated that. That said, I have not heard that one shouldn’t prune H. niger nor its hybrids until after the new leaves have emerged. Neither could I find anything affirming that with, admittedly, a quick online search. I know you are far more of an expert on hellebores than me (and almost anyone else, for that matter). Could you elaborate on why one should wait with H. niger and its hybrids?
I would like to know more about this too, Scott.
I wrote a detailed reply that seems to have vanished. Not sure I have the energy to recreate it.
I hope a good night’s sleep has restored your energy to try again. If it’s easier to email it to me. I’ll add it to the post.
With back issues and no oxycodone, i’ve been wondering if that tool works! Thanks for the endorsement!
Righto.
You’re welcome!
A few years ago I had both my knees replaced at the same time in January. By March I was outdoors and upon inspecting my hellebores, decided they definitely needed trimming. Lacking your nifty tool, I sat on my foldable narrow green garden bench, clippers in hand, and got to work. Shortly into it, when I tried to get up to move to a new spot, the bench tipped backward and deposited me on my back, far into my backyard, and I could not get up. No cell phone on me, windows all shut against my cries for help. No Lassie to fetch my husband for me. My good fortune was that my young, strong neighbor took that moment to walk the dog in his backyard and heard me calling. One yank and I was up, slightly mortified that I’d been caught in my mad gardener escapade. If only I’d had that tool!
In the worst of my pain last February I had to go to the BMV to renew my license. My condition was a herniated disc that caused constant contractions in my upper left leg. Never stopped. Excruciating. On top of that, it caused terrible weakness in my left knee that would cause me to fall at times of its choosing. Because each step was so painful, I decided to take a shortcut as I approached the stripmall where the BMV was located. Rather than walking ten steps further to a set of stairs, I decided to step up on a low concrete block retaining wall and over some football-sized rocks to the sidewalk on the other side. Well, when I stepped onto a concrete block with my right foot it rolled off the block before it. I fell forward and tried to stop my fall with my left foot but my knee gave out. Luckily or maybe not, it had just enough strength to lunge me mostly over the riprap and onto the sidewalk. Right in front of a gasping young couple sitting on a bench. And I knew exactly what they were thinking and it was the worst thing they could be thinking, “That poor old man!” Sadly, I had no choice. I had to kill them. They had seen what they’d seen, and I couldn’t take a chance of them possibly knowing me and telling others. Of course, I’m joking. I didn’t kill them. I just threatened to kill them if they ever told anyone, anywhere, at anytime.
What is the name of the tool you’re talking about and where did you get it? I think all of us gardens look for tools to make our garden days easier!
Google long handled pruners or long handled shears. That should get you to that product and similar ones.
I was able to track this down by digging into my past Amazon orders. It is the Fiskars Grass Shears, Long Handle, 36″ Handle Lawn Shears. I’ve added this information to the photo caption as well.
Scott,
What a fun way to start the new year! Laughing out loud at your article; AND THEN – your answers to the questions from your readers! (I own one of those tools already, just because I am a tool geek and I got to promote it on TV. It is pretty cool. You always inspire me with your timing and your humor. It so nice to read how you used to have horrible pain and now you do not! Here is to a happy and healthy new year!
With my best regards, Jennifer Brennan
Thank Jennifer! Good to hear from you. I had high hopes of coming up to iLandscape this year but it didn’t come together. Hope to see you soon!
That was an hysterical reply to Donna. Loved it, so unexpected!
Hehehe.
Cutting off the old leaves only half is the job. Then you need to haul then away (and dump them down the hill).
Yeah, I did it for you once. It could be a lot worse though. You could have to dump them uphill.
I enjoyed this for the reminder as well as the humor. Your comments are as good as the article! I, too, don’t like seeing all of that mottled, dried-up, brown foliage, so I will set to work on this soon. I already have blooms on one of my 1,524 Hellebores!
Stop goofing around online and get to work! 1524 prematurely blooming hellebores are depending on you.
oxy? it has disappeared from medical pain relief where I live. i’m jealous. on the gardening front, it’s good to have some guidance on hellebores -with this erratic weather, i have some blooming already way too early!
We need a good replacement to oxy, or at least a sensible way of prescribing it. Too many people are in too much pain, which causes a lot of awful downstream problems. In a way, this is also a terrible epidemic.
Mom and I would cut back the hellebores and epimediums Christmas afternoon; presents were opened, dinner was in the oven and we could escape the rest of our family!
What a nice, if somewhat anti-social, Christmas tradition! I’m imagining you and your mother out there slashing away at epimediums and hellebores while disparaging your loved ones still inside. Perhaps their presents to you were disappointing? I’m sure this isn’t how it goes down, but it’s fun to imagine it! Hopefully they don’t read this and start imagining it themselves.
Interesting. I am someone who waits and then does a precision cut back later. Since the the leaves are still green for most of the winter, I always figured they were still producing food for the plant.
My main comment is a shout out to the less “clean” photo you showed but didn’t like. I definitely like the look of leaves in the garden. Plus I know the benefits for the plants and the world. When I cut back old leaves, I give them a few snips to reduce their bulk and then sprinkle some leaves from the trees. It may look “messy” to others but it increases moisture retention and adds nutrients back into the soil.
Leaves aren’t producing much in the way of food this late in the year as biological processes all but stop in cold weather. Especially so with old and damaged leaves. Further south, this might not be as true as it is in more northern climates, such as where I am in Cincinnati.
As for tree leaves in the garden. You be you, but I’m not fond of big, chunky leaves cluttering up my view of flowering plants in the more refined parts of the garden. In the periphary, which has plenty of bulbs and ephemerals, I’m not so tidy. My yard has a lot of trees and I get a ton of leaves. Not one ever leaves the place. Some get blown to the outer parts of the yard, where they mulch larger trees and shrubs. But most get raked or blown into the small amount of lawn l have left, get mown into little bits, and then blown back into the beds. This makes a lighter mulch with a finer texture which allows air and precipitation into the soil and they break down faster. I think they also provide a better look that doesn’t compete for attention with plants. The removed hellebore leaves get the same treatment or get put into the compost pile.
But different gardeners doing their own thing is good. It means more diversity in the landscape and the ecosystem.
I now trim my few hellebores every couple of months throughout the year as I also find that the old leaves become depressing. In flowering season I removed all leaves and I thought they looked great. I think they flowered more and emphasised the ruffled appearance, which can blend with begonias, heuchera and such.
Typically, the foliage on my plants here looks great until about Christmas except those I accidentally fray when string trimming too closely, but I wouldn’t hesitate to remove ugly leaves through the season either. These plants are resilient and will never miss a leaf or two. Interesting idea to remove new leaves so as to emphasize the flowers. Not sure I’m ready to make that move yet myself, but if that’s what you like…
I am that very person who likes leaves when and where I can have them. I find it a confusing issue but thanks for the tool tip and here are my contradictory thoughts (on Garden Rant!).https://gardenrant.com/2022/01/hellebores-to-leave-or-unleaf.html
Not really an issue. Mostly just a bit of fun and humor to express my preference and to get the conversation rolling. Part of the humor I hoped would come through is the ridiculousness of zero sum stridency over an “issue” such as whether to leave or not leave leaves on hellebores. I love this line in your 2022 rant: “Sometimes maybe, there is no universally right answer?” And, just for the record, if my old hellebore leaves didn’t look manky (great new word for me that I will wear out for the rest of my life!), I wouldn’t bother to cut them back. Extra work for no real purpose? No thank you. But here, with our weather, manky is what they become. And a good, hard cutting back is what they get.
Another tool that works for others and I will not be able to use it properly. I’ve never been able to use a hoe properly to weed. Genetic defect? Lack of patience? (My husband’s belief). If I can’t get down and crawl around my gardening days are over.
Do any of you own a little curved scythe-like tool? The ones imprted from China have a blonde wood handle but those made in USA have orange plastic handles which don’t easily get lost if they fall into foliage. Once you gain comfort manipulating this tool it’s perfect for slicing away last years hellebore foliage. Your choice of removing all the stem or slicing a few inches above emerging buds and new leaves.
I can’t usually FIND my hellebores until mid-March or April because they are under snow. They’re on the north side of the house and in the corner where the snow falls off the roof…ooops. If the leaves get “manky” (great word) they don’t get cut till spring. If they’re covered, why cut them, eh?