Helleborus Frostkiss® Pippa’s Purple® Hellebore

Helleborus Frostkiss® Pippa’s Purple® Hellebore is an evergreen perennial offering year-round interest. Blooming heavily, continuously, and uniformly from late winter to mid-spring, Pippa’s Purple sets masses of smoky dark purple-pink flowers enhanced with deep burgundy speckles. Borne on long, sturdy dark purple stems above a basal rosette of dark green leaves with white marbling, the rounded nodding to outward-facing flowers last a long time and make cute kitchen table bouquets or lovely additions to cut floral arrangements. Nectar rich, the flowers offer emerging bees an essential early food source.

A Helleborus hybrid, commonly called Lenten rose or hellebore, Frostkiss Pippa’s Purple is an herbaceous plant with a slow growth rate and an upright, mounding habit. Shown to best effect when massed or grouped in beds, borders, and patio pots, the plant also makes a lovely ground cover and will naturalize, slowly spreading via rhizomatous roots. It also self-seeds in ideal growing conditions but will not become invasive. It’s ideal for planting under a high-branched deciduous tree or large shrub, protected from strong winter winds.

Cold hardy, easy to grow, and low maintenance, hellebore grows best in dappled shade locations with organically rich, moist, well-draining soil, having a neutral to alkaline pH. However, it grows well in most soils, including chalk, clay, and loam, and in most growing conditions. The plant is drought tolerant once established, but it will not tolerate extremely wet, waterlogged soils. It is deer and rabbit resistant. A fall mulch protects the plant in winter. In mild summer climates, the hellebores in the FrostKiss series grow well in full sun if the roots are kept cool.