Hellebores for Florida

For Floridians who have been lusting after Erica Glasener's recent photos of hellebores ( http://www.hometalk.com/activity/123052 and http://www.hometalk.com/activity/127670), now doing so much to enliven winter gardens, I wanted to share some advice I received from Judith Knott Tyler of Pine Knot Farms, a leading grower and one of the authors of "Hellebores: A Comprehensive Guide." The good news is that she reports having customers as far south as Palm Beach growing the Lenten Rose. She also recommends Helleborus lividus (the Majorcan hellebore) and Helleborus argutifolius (the Corsican hellebore), as well as the interspecies hybrids H x ericsmithii, H x nigercors and H x ballardiae. (The wildly popular "Ivory Prince" is one of the ericsmithii hybrids.) So I'd say that gives us a lot of plants to try!
For those of you in southern Virginia or northern North Carolina (or those who like an excuse for a road trip), Pine Knot Farms will be open to the public the last weekend of February and the first weekend of March for a hellebore festival. Two other excellent nurseries, Plant Delights and Camellia Forest, will be open those weekends as well, which sounds like a whole lot of potential for trouble for the plant enthusiast.
http://www.pineknotfarms.com/hellebore_festival.html