How to Grow Hellebores in Containers

Hellebores (Helleborus spp.) are unique flowering perennials that add colorful blooms to our late winter and early spring gardens, right when most other plants are hiding from the cold!

They’re most often grown in shady beds and borders, adding cool season flowers in fabulous shades of apricot, metallic blue, carbon gray, celery green, chartreuse, maroon, dusty pink, plum, white, and yellow.

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But they also make handsome and long-lived container specimens that can be grown outdoors year-round, adorning decks, patios, porches, and walkways.

Hellebores can also be cultivated indoors as houseplants, but for this to be successful a cool room is needed.

Also known as the Lenten or Christmas rose, hellebores are often used as holiday decor like poinsettia, adding color and greenery for decoration during the dark days of winter.

So if you’re ready to add some lively winter flowers to your potted gardens, let’s get into the step by step details about how to grow hellebore in containers and planters.

Here’s a quick look at what you’ll find ahead:

Hellebore Basics

The hellebores we buy from florists and garden centers are mainly hybrids of the popular species H. argutifolius, H. foetidus, H. orientalis, and H. niger, and typically go by the name of Helleborus x hybridus.

These showy plants flower from early December through April, depending on your location, and feature lantern-like buds that open to rose or star-shaped blooms that face down or outwards.

These low-maintenance plants do best in partial shade and need moist, rich soil with a neutral to slightly alkaline pH of 7.0 to 8.0.

Container Styles

Hellebores are deep-rooted, with rhizomes that grow large and gnarly, and containers should be a minimum of 12 inches deep to keep them happy.

Choose pots and planters a few inches larger than the one the hellebore is currently growing in.

But don’t go too big or you risk overpotting the plant and the soil can easily become waterlogged, causing problems like root rot.

Also, your pot or planter should have a top that’s wider than the base to make it easier to remove the rootball when repotting is required. 

Materials such as concrete, hypertufa, resin, and wood are good options for areas that regularly receive freezing temperatures.

Potting Up

Late spring or early autumn are the best times to pot up hellebores, although autumn-planted specimens may not bear flowers until their second year.

Planting in spring allows the roots to become well-established before the flowering season.

Hellebores like moist, loamy soil with plenty of organic matter. And it needs to be well-draining to avoid issues like crown and root rot.

To give your container plants the conditions they need for healthy growth with an abundance of vibrant flowers, provide them with a high quality potting soil enriched with plenty of natural materials. 

You can make your own potting soil by mixing together the following ingredients:

1. One part garden soil or commercial potting mix.
2. One part compost or worm castings for nutrients and humusy tilth.
3. One part coconut coir to add to the loamy texture, and help keep the soil evenly moist.
4. One part grit for drainage – materials like landscape sand or pea gravel are ideal.

Or if you choose to go with a commercial soil blend, opt for products rich in organic materials like compost and coconut coir.

Tank’s-Pro Potting Mix is a medium with the organic materials hellebores love and is available in one and a half cubic feet bags at Arbico Organics.

Tank’s-Pro Potting Mix 

If you are using commercial products, I suggest mixing in one part grit to ensure your blend is well-draining.

To keep water moving freely through soil in containers, I always add an inch or two of drainage materials over the bottom of the pot.

I like to use the shards of broken ceramic and terra cotta containers, but any material that creates a porous level works, such as pebbles, pinecones, or shells.

Set your plant in place, spreading the roots and placing the crown barely below the soil line – burying the crown too deep is a common mistake and often leads to fatal crown rot.

You may wish to create a small mound of soil then drape the roots over the mound to elevate the crown and prevent it from settling too deeply. Carefully backfill with soil and firm gently over the roots. 

Water gently but thoroughly to settle in place.

Hellebores don’t like having their roots disturbed, so repot into larger containers only after they’ve become a bit rootbound, generally, repotting is needed every two to four years.

How to Grow

Hellebores are quite easy to grow if you give them the conditions they prefer.

Exposure

Most Lenten roses do best in a partial shade location.

Some of the more recent cultivars can tolerate more sun than others, but in general a semi-shaded or dappled light location with morning sun is ideal. Hot afternoon sun should be avoided for all types.

While they’re flowering in the cool temperatures of late winter or early spring, you can place your pots and containers in a full sun location near the house, so you can enjoy the blooms.

However, after they’ve finished flowering, you’ll want to move them back into partial shade where they can rest comfortably for the summer months.

Fertilizing

For strong, healthy plants that produce copious amounts of flowers, in addition to soil that’s rich in organic matter these perennials benefit from an annual application of fertilizer.

They can be fed either in the spring after flowers have faded or in early fall when growth has resumed after dormancy.

You can use a two-inch side-dressing of compost in spring after blooming, gently working it into the soil with a handheld garden fork.

Or you can opt for a balanced, slow-release fertilizer and gently scratch the granules into the surface. Make sure you follow the package instructions for the correct amounts to avoid overfertilizing or burning the roots.

You can find Burpee’s Natural Organic All Purpose Granular Plant Food with a balanced 4-4-4 (NPK) formula available at Burpee.

Watering

Hellebores do best in soil that’s evenly moist but not wet, and for container specimens that means providing about one inch of water per week in spring and fall if rainfall is inadequate.

During the summer months if there isn’t enough rain, water new plantings when the top inch of soil is dry to the touch. Plants are dormant during summer’s heat and don’t require as much water as they do in spring and fall.

The foliage may or may not die back during summer dormancy and the soil should be maintained at a moderately dry level, but not allowed to dry out completely.

Winter Care

Tough and hardy in USDA Zones 4 to 9, hellebores need little extra care during the winter when grown outdoors.

Be sure to use a container made of materials that can handle temperature fluctuations during freeze/thaw cycles and remove catchment saucers to avoid having pots in standing water, or in water that might freeze.

A thick, three- to four-inch winter mulch over the root zone helps to protect plants from heaving in freeze/thaw cycles. Use natural materials, such as bark mulch, shredded leaves, or straw.

In late winter, cut back any leaves damaged by inclement weather to tidy plants up before they flower and produce new growth.

Indoor Upkeep

Although hellebores prefer to live outside, they can be grown as houseplants as well.

Place indoor containers in a spot that receives bright light in winter and spring, then move them into a cool spot out of direct sun and with moderate amounts of light for summer and autumn.

Ideal indoor temperatures are in the range of 50 to 60°F, so avoid placing them beside heat vents or in warm rooms.

Bigger and Better

Hellebores are long lived plants that love cool weather, and each year they grow bigger and produce copious amounts of flowers, whether they’re in the ground or potted up!

Be sure to provide them with soil that’s rich in organic matter and keep it evenly moist, but not oversaturated.

Fertilize them once a year with compost or a slow release fertilizer and move your containers out of full sun and into a partly shady location during the hot months of late spring and summer.

If your region experiences freezing conditions in winter, use containers that won’t crack from temperature fluctuations and give your plants a thick mulch to avoid heaving roots.

Low maintenance, showy, and flowering when it’s too frigid for others, you’ll love how these easy care plants brighten up the short, dark days of late winter and early spring!

Are you growing hellebores? Let us know in the comments section below!

And for more hellebore know-how, be sure to add these guides to your reading list next:

• How to Grow Hellebores, the Winter to Spring Sensation
• 11 of the Best Double Hellebore Varieties for the Late Winter Garden
• How to Divide and Transplant Hellebores