Quick Guide: winter, hardy, semi-shade, height: 30-45cm/12-18in, width: 45cm/18in

No gardener who wants to enjoy flowers all the year round can afford to ignore the Christmas rose, Helleborus niger, which produces its exquisite white blooms in deepest winter. The Lenten rose, H. orientalis, is equally valuable, blooming from winter into early spring with dramatically coloured flowers of green, white, pink, red-purple or black-purple, often splashed inside with a contrasting colour. As cut flowers hellebores are very long-lasting.

GROWING Set out young plants in small groups in autumn in deep, moisture-retentive but well-drained soil into which plenty of well-rotted compost or leaf mould has been incorporated. Choose a site where they can be left for years: they dislike disturbance. Protect the flowers of the Christmas rose as they open with cloches. Cut stems right back after flowering; apply an annual mulch in the autumn.

PROPAGATION Divide well-established plants in spring and replant immediately. Alternatively sow seeds in sandy soil in a cold frame in summer. Prick off the seedlings into a nursery bed and grow on until planting out in the autumn of the following year. They will not flower for 2-3 years.

VARIETIES H. niger `Potter's Wheel', exceptional white form.

POSSIBLE PROBLEMS Leaf spot.