A couple of years ago I bought a white hellebore from my local nursery and it blossomed magnificently twice.

In April, after flowering, it lost its leaves which should not have happened since it is an evergreen plant. I was lucky enough to hear about it on Gardener's World and Carol Klein explained that a fungus attacks the plant and make the leaves turn rusty and disappear. It doesn't make the plant die provided you dig it out and move it which I did last Saturday.

I lifted it and found out that there were still the old root system from when I bought it but it also had made lovely long and strong new ones. I took advantage of having it out to split it and made four out it. I planted two next to the other two hellebores I have under the kaki tree (a black one and a white spotted one) and the two others in my mixed border I have started along the road.

The advantage with hellebores is that they don't have petals but sepals. The sepals then change colour and it makes the plant last much longer. For example, the white hellebore turns light green and blossoms from March to April.