One Of A Kind

Three decades of work have produced a remarkable collection of unique hellebores for one nurseryman, yet they would be too expensive to put into commercial production and could disappear, finds Jacky Hobbs.

- Jacky Hobbs

HELLEBORES are enchantingly and naturally diverse, their promiscuity ensuring that numerous hybrids can occur, either by accident or design. scientist and nurseryman Mike by ford has tried to harness the more desirable traits that may occur among the resulting hybrids and, over the past 30 years, he has amassed more than 1,000 individual named or, more frequently, just numbered, hellebore plants, which comprise a unique collection within his staffordshire polytunnels.

Mr byford also holds a National Collection of wild species hellebores, many of which hail from eastern europe and further east, whose genetic inheritance is incorporated into his breeding work. In addition, there are numerous named, intersectional crosses and cultivars, plants resulting from enthusiasts creating hybrids that would not naturally (geographically) occur in the wild. They are usually the results of years of dedicated work, but the offspring is generally sterile, so their individual qualities are more readily replicable by division or micro propagation.

However, the hellebores that most people enjoy best of all in their gardens are found among the hundreds of very variable, often fancy, but not always officially named hybrids collectively gathered under the umbrella heading of Helleborus x hybridus.

Across three decades, Mr Byford has raised numerous very desirable hellebores in shades of lemon, apricot, plum, raspberry, cream, blackberry and pistachio. Some are perfectly cupped singles, others have froufrou anemone centres with rosettes of nectaries or wear full skirts of striking, double-layered petals.