Hellebore heralds the start of the New Year and is nominated as HTA’s Plant of the Month for January. With many varieties flowering from early January through to February, it is the perfect plant to spruce up the garden during the darker winter months.

Also known as the Christmas Rose (Helleborus.niger), the Hellebore is a traditional garden favourite with a colour range of pure white through to deep purple, pink, cream, yellow, and red flowers, Hellebores are guaranteed to light up a damp, shady spot in gardens this winter.

There are approximately 20 species of herbaceous, evergreen, perennial flowering Hellebore plants which are often used for decorative purposes and are popular with gardeners for their early flowering period during winter and spring. They are also frost resistant, making them ideal for this time of year.

TV gardener David Domoney is the celebrity champion for Hellebore this month.  As well as fronting TV programmes such as ‘Love your Garden’ and ‘The Great British Garden Revival’, he also pioneered 'Cultivation Street' a national campaign to bring communities and neighbours together, transforming front gardens and community gardens by improving the place they live in through people, plants and pride.

David (above) said: “Flowering Hellebores make you wonder at the beauty and resilience of nature as they open beautiful flowers in the depth of winter.  The diversity of the colour and blooms together with integrated shaped emerald green foliage across many varieties make this a perfect first choice as the calendar year starts.”

Nominated and agreed upon by British growers and retailers, the HTA’s Plant of the Month campaign highlights the plants that are widely available and looking especially good each month.

For more details, please visit www.the-hta.org.uk/plantofthemonth