Hellebore

January is the month most people forget about flowers entirely, and honestly, I understand. Everything looks grey and dormant and a bit defeated. But then you look down — actually down, because hellebores are modest like that — and there they are. The Winter Jewels series, nodding away under the bare branches like they couldn't care less about the frost.

I'm slightly obsessed with these. The colour range is extraordinary — deep plum, speckled cream, dusty pink, slate purple, sometimes all on the same plant across different seasons. They look like something from a Victorian botanical illustration, all that intricate veining and those spotted throats.

What I love most is their quiet stubbornness. They flower when nothing else will. No fuss, no drama, just these elegant, downward-facing blooms getting on with it while everything else sleeps. There's a lesson in that, probably.

They're not the showiest cut flower — I'll be honest about that. The stems are short and they don't last as long in a vase as some. But float a few heads in a shallow bowl of water on your kitchen windowsill in February, and you've got something genuinely magical. Candlelight optional but recommended.

I think every garden should have at least one hellebore. They're evergreen, they spread slowly, and they reward you precisely when you need rewarding most.