supposedly flower pink and keep foliage all year round....

And FWIW, any hellebore is a great plant :-)

Is there a specific purpose for the rock mulch? It would not be my first choice.

A local Dutch vendor, who obtained original material from Belgium, had them tissue cultured in China and offered flowering sized plants for $2. After the flowers faded, they were reduced to 7/$10, at which time, I stocked up on as many as I could load.
They also had H. 'Snow Love', a H. x ericsmithii species at same pricing. Had to make a second trip for a load of those!
My kind of place to shop!
Rb

(PS - I justified the obviously glutenous behavior, by pretending to aid the economy!)

As an aside, unless you are feeling particularly sticky today, that would be gluttonous behavior :-)

OT.....
Gardengal48-
Has the Hort business improved in that area?
Have frequent contact with Gary & Jack, the Boyz at Naylor Creek and their sales appear to be robust in selected products.
In my area of the SE, we are trying to recover from a cyclical drought period and sales of plants, other than Annuals and vegetables, are rather sluggish.

It seems to be better this season compared to last :-) After a truly abominable winter for this area, there's a lot of plant replacing going on, which makes it great for the local nursery industry! And with the current state of the economy, a HUGE interest in growing edibles - way more than I've ever seen in all my years in the biz.

On a personal note, I moved away from my garden of almost 25 years at the beginning of summer. Saved a few favorites (including a bunch of hellebores) and sold off as much of the rest as I could (place to become a rental property). I will be moving into my new place next month and working with a much smaller scale garden....not getting any younger!! It is in more shade than not, so will be looking closely at some Naylor Creek goodies to add. btw, I moved about 60 minutes closer to them, although they have stopped opening the nursery to drop-in sales :-(

Gary & Jack participate in most of the Flower & Trade Shows and Expos in the PNW, as far south as SF, so you should be able to find their plants closer to home.

Have been trying to interest them in a few additional plant lines, including Helleborus, Tricyrtis and possibly Japanese Asarum (they do extensive trades there), but as they have no employees, I think they are concerned about time constraints and subsequent deterioration in quality.
Good luck!

Starjr....
Sorry, didn't intend to hijack your post.
Good luck with your new Hellebores! For a long life of your delightful plants, insure that they have good drainage. Most important!

Rb

Leaves, debris and weed seeds are going to blow in over time and you'll have weeds sprouting in your rocks that won't be fun to remove. The rocks are going to hold a lot of heat that may not be appropriate for all plants, and could increase your watering needs. And, they won't break down to add/replenish nutrients in the soil leaving you to have to maintain a fertilizer schedule.

The other aspect of rock mulches, especially those over a landscape weed fabric, is that there is minimal opportunity to replace organic matter in the soil, a situation both the soil biology and most plants require for good health. And rock mulches tend to heat up excessively.