Miraculous hellebores at Chelsea

Each year Chelsea Flower Show’s plant exhibitors work miracles managing to bring plants into flower for the third week of May, but no one has pulled off as big a miracle as the team from Ashwood Nurseries. In a rare and wonderful sight, their stand in the Great Pavilion was adorned with fresh, perfect hellebores, flowering two months later than normal.

The hellebores on Ashwood’s Chelsea stand normally flower in March and early April. Ashwood’s skilled nurserymen managed to hold the plants back in refrigerators so they flowered with perfect timing for the show.

Hellebore display at Chelsea

Kevin Belcher and Michael Brookes performed a plant version of the hokey-cokey for this year’s Chelsea, endlessly moving the plants in and out of the chiller as the weather swung between unseasonably cold and suddenly hot.

Earlier in the year, with their leaves dying back, Kevin admits: “The hellebores looked that miserable you might as well have put them in a skip!”

Thankfully, they weren’t thrown away, but coaxed into full flower, finally coming out of the fridge on Friday. “It’s a miracle they don’t look like forced rhubarb,” Michael added.

Evolution Series hellebores

Among the hellebores on display were some of the nursery’s newest introductions, an exciting new range of hybrids called the Evolution Series.

Golden yellow nectaries set these hellebores apart. Some have picotee edges, others have a deep red flush to the centre. The flowers come in beautiful sunset shades of gold, apricot and peachy pink, and there are doubles in the range too.

The raised stand – the perfect height to really appreciate the detail of these nodding flowers – was topped by beautiful specimens of the spring-flowering shrub corylopsis. Both Corylopsis ‘Lemon Drop’ and Corylopsis sinensis provided perfectly-toned flowers to go with the golden, amber and peach hellebores.

Find out more about the new Evolution Series of hellebores here.

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