Hellebores are generally very accommodating plants flowering early in spring and living happily in shade. Avoid Helleborus foetidus the stinking hellebore or setterwort, if you want coloured rose like flowers but it has shapely green florescence if you like growing a flower green bed.
As this graphic shows there are a growing number of hybrids offering a range of colours.
See our tips on Growing Helebores
Species from Wikipedia
Helleborus niger – Christmas rose or black hellebore
Helleborus orientalis – Lenten rose, Lenten hellebore, oriental hellebore (N.B. most of the Lenten hellebores in gardens are now considered to be H. × hybridus)
Helleborus argutifolius – Corsican hellebore
Helleborus lividus
Helleborus vesicarius
Helleborus atrorubens
Helleborus croaticus
Helleborus cyclophyllus
Helleborus dumetorum
Helleborus abruzzicus
Helleborus liguricus
Helleborus boconei
Helleborus multifidus
Helleborus multifidus subsp. hercegovinus
Helleborus multifidus subsp. istriacus
Helleborus multifidus subsp. multifidus
Helleborus niger subsp. macranthus (syn. H. niger major)
Helleborus niger subsp. niger
Helleborus odorus
Helleborus odorus subsp. laxus
Helleborus odorus subsp. odorus
Helleborus orientalis subsp. abchasicus (syn. H. abchasicus)
Helleborus orientalis subsp. guttatus
Helleborus orientalis subsp. orientalis (syn. H. caucasicus, H. kochii)
Helleborus purpurascens
Helleborus thibetanus (syn. H. chinensis)
Helleborus torquatus
Helleborus viridis – green hellebore or bear’s-foot
Helleborus occidentalis (formerly H. viridis subsp. occidentalis)
Other species names (now considered invalid) may be encountered in older literature, including H. hyemalis, H. polychromus, H. ranunculinus, H. trifolius.
Helleborus orientalis in the Woodland Garden at Kew, spring 2011.
For specialist information try Hellebore.org
Credit
Helleborus orientalis by Kew CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
