Plant of the Week

Lenten Rose

As we begin out transition from winter to spring, one of the stars for early spring colors was chosen as Perennial of the Year in 2005.  It’s an evergreen perennial that begins to flower late winter – spring, and is actually a member of the buttercup family.  Our plant of the week is Helleborus xhybridus, or commonly known as ‘Lenten Rose’.  Lenten Rose is hardy zones 4-9, grows in clumps 18-24 inches high and 2-3′ wide depending on the selection, loves the shade and adds color, texture and habit to the landscape and perennial gardens.  And yes, flowers begin late winter, come in a wide variety of colors from white to almost black (red, pink, yellow, spotted, single and double flowers), and may last for two months or longer.  Add that to the wonderful foliage (leaves divided into 7-9 segments looking like coarse leathery umbrellas) and you can see why Lenten Rose is our plant of the week.  By the way, did we mention that it is deer resistant?

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 2nd, 2010 at 12:54 pm and is filed under Active. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.