Helleborus hybridus ViV Milana

Heleborus x hybridus ViV Milana is an excellent variety with abundant flowering that will delight colour enthusiasts in winter. Blooming for several weeks from January, this Lenten Rose produces single flowers with well-opened purple petals. It is a robust and hardy perennial, easy to grow in all regions, even in soil with a clay tendency enriched with humus. Its evergreen foliage forms a compact clump that will create beautiful beds in shaded areas of the garden. Its limited growth also allows for easy cultivation in pots.

The ViV Hellebores are varieties resulting from in-vitro multiplication. Unlike those resulting from seed multiplication, Hellebores produced by in-vitro ensure a rigorously identical flowering to the variety from which they originate. They have the same genetic characteristics as the mother plant, are more vigorous and develop uniformly.

Hellebore Milana belongs to the family of Renonculacées, which includes about sixty genera and around 2500 species, mostly herbaceous. The species Helleborus orientalis is native to Greece, Turkey, and the centre and east of the Caucasus. It is a perennial plant that hybridizes very easily with other species to give many hybrids with very varied colours and forms. Names of varieties are rarely given to these hybrids, They are distinguished by shape and colour. Oriental Hellebore is a hardy plant that tolerates temperatures down to -15 °C, naturally growing in forests, thickets, and clearings up to 2,000 m altitude.

Milana is part of a large collection of hybrids selected for their compactness and floribundance. This variety forms a clump 35 to 45 cm (14 to 18in) tall and about forty wide. Its vegetation consists of palmate, slightly toothed, dark green and shiny evergreen basal leaves which only live for 8 months and are regularly replaced by new leaves. Milana blooms abundantly in the middle of winter, mainly in January and February, bringing joy in a dark season. Its single flowers are made up of well-opened petals and have an almost round shape. This corolla is purple with a dark centre and the petals have a light spot at their base. Unlike many other varieties, the stamens are relatively discreet in Milana. These flowers have the corolla positioned in a vertical plane, or even inclined downwards, allowing water to slide off like an umbrella, avoiding the accumulation of water in the centre that could cause rot. Hellebores do not like to be moved once established, and young plants sometimes take time to flower,  so be careful to choose their location well.

Hellebores are valuable perennial plants for brightening up the dark days of autumn and winter. Milana will be the starting point of a year-round flowering bed. Add Bergenias with their vibrant blooms, white, pink, or even red, which will take over from our little Hellebore, as well as Mountain Bluet, such as Centaurea carnea with its elegant and sculptural pink flowers from April to June in light shade. Summer will see the reign of Lady's Mantle, with its decorative foliage, sometimes bluish-green, on which raindrops form small pearls, brightened by a cloud of yellow flowers. And for autumn, Pretty Lady Susan Japanese Anemone, another Renonculacée, will have long-lasting pink flowers with a yellow heart from August to November.