Grow hepaticas: Cultivation tips and variety recommendations

Expert nurseryman John Massey has just published the book ‘My World of Hepaticas‘ with Tomoo Mabuchi. Here, he talks to Val Bourne about these delicate plants, sharing tips on how to grow hepaticas and variety recommendations to try at home.

John Massey’s Ashwood Nurseries in the West Midlands is packed with specialities including hardy cyclamen, hydrangeas, conifers and snowdrops, as well as a world-famous Ashwood strain of hybrid hellebores. John is a plantsman to his core and his private passion is for hepaticas. Here, he talks about how these small woodlanders (related to the wood anemone) caught his imagination and provides tips on how to grow hepaticas.

A young start

John’s hepatica obsession began at an early age. “I was five when my parents moved house,” he recalls. “There was a rock garden in the worst possible spot, under a sycamore tree by a small pool with a waterfall, but it had hepaticas growing beside it.”

Years later John spotted the same plants while skiing and beganlooking for other species in the wild. Trips to the Pyrenees and the Picos followed, since hepaticas are generally found on high sloping ground in lightly wooded areas, blooming just as the snow melts. In Japan, they are known as yukiwariso – literally ‘the flower that breaks through the snow’.

Now, John has a dedicated hepatica greenhouse and he’s been hybridising them for about ten years, although he confesses to still being ‘at the messing about stage’. His ambition is to breed a plant where the flowers and foliage appear simultaneously, as most hepaticas flower before their leaves appear.

History of hepaticas

Japanese gardeners have been growing hepaticas since 1603 and there are thousands of named cultivars. At first they were collected from the wild, but over the past 50 years nurserymen have been deliberately breeding and naming intricate flower forms.

The colour range of the Japanese hepatica, Hepatica japonica, is far greater. The colourful ‘petals’ (which are really sepals) can be yellow, green or brown, although the traditional blues, and purples, pinks and whites are still highly revered in Japan. The stamens and pistil colours can also vary. There are nine listed flower forms, all with evocative Japanese names, that are listed by the International Hepatica Society. The perfect double blooms are named sene-e, meaning ‘a thousand layers’.

In Japan, these highly bred hepaticas are treated as florists’ flowers rather than garden plants. If you want to grow ‘connoisseur’ hepaticas – those with japonica in their name – you will need greenhouse facilities. These are definitely not plants for a garden setting, although one or two English gardeners have succeeded.

Recommended hepatica varieties

Hepatica nobilis

The hepatica to grow outdoors over here is the hardy European species, H. nobilis. The biggest diversity in colour and form found in H. nobilis occurs on Öland, the second largest island off the Swedish coast. John believes the variations may have been caused by wind-drift from the Chernobyl disaste. Similar aberrations have occurred with other plants in Japan in the aftermath of Hiroshima.

Hepatica maxima

“I’m using H. maxima in my breeding line, which grows only on one volcanic Korean island, Ulleungdo,” John explains. H. maxima will survive in British gardens. The green-centred, white flowers are framed by three leafy bracts and thick, three-lobed, evergreen leaves, while the silvery fringe around the foliage and the thistledown stems are very attractive.

Hepatica x schlyteri

A Swedish enthusiast, the late Severin Schlyter of Lund in Sweden, created a cross between Hepatica maxima and H. nobilis during the 1980s, which he named ‘Nomax’. This has since been re-named H. x schlyteri, in his honour. Offspring usually combine hirsute foliage, derived from H. maxima, along with simple H. nobilis flowers in white, pink or blue. These ‘schlyteri’ hybrids endure well in British gardens too.

Hepatica transsilvanica

H. transsilvanica, another garden-worthy species, found mainly in the Carpathian Mountains of Romania, has larger flowers and three-lobed semi-evergreen foliage. Blue is the commonest colour, and can be seen in pale, single-flowered ‘Loddon Blue’; there is also a double with a whirligig centre called ‘Elison Spence’. H. transsilvanica and its cultivars are more tolerant of drier, sunnier positions – although they don’t like to dry out completely.

Hepatica ‘Millstream Merlin’

Because hepaticas hybridise freely, new ones pop up in gardens when the bees get busy. ‘Millstream Merlin’, a gentian-blue hepatica with long-lasting semi-double flowers, was found by the late H. Lincoln Foster in Falls Village, Connecticut. It’s thought to be a cross between H. americana and H. transsilvanica and was first exhibited in London in 1989 by the late Kath Dryden, a lady famous for having great plants.

How to grow hepaticas

John Massey shares how he grows delicate hepaticas, both in the garden and greenhouse.

Grow hepaticas in the greenhouse

Summer shade is vital in the greenhouse, as is lots and lots of ventilation. At the first sign of new flower buds, remove the shading and then replace it when the new leaves appear in late autumn and winter. Use porous clay pots as opposed to plastic, and free-draining compost with pumice stone or perlite added (Ashwood make a special hepatica mix that’s available from the nursery).

Water the plants well when they are flowering and as the new leaves appear, but reduce watering in summer and autumn when hepaticas enter a form of hibernation. Feed occasionally with organic, seaweed-based fertiliser in late winter, spring and autumn, and aim to keep the greenhouse between 0-2°C – don’t let potted hepaticas experience temperatures below -5°C.

Grow hepaticas in the garden

Out in the garden, plant hepaticas on sunny banks under deciduous trees and shrubs, preferably on a slope. A nearby pool or stream provides summer humidity and working leafmould into the soil helps. Those hepaticas with more marbling or silver on their foliage will tolerate more sun.

Find out more about Ashwood Nurseries and order your copy of ‘My World of Hepaticas’ at ashwoodnurseries.com

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• Create a mini woodland in a container

• Capture the essence of Japanese gardens