Anemone Centred Betty Ranicar Double Dark Purple Double Green Double Maroon Edged Double Pink Double Pink Freckled Double White Double White Spotted Double Yellow

White Hybrid Apricot Hybrid Dark Hybrid Claret Hybrids Blue Grey Hybrids Green Hybrid Green with Dark Nectaries Light Pink Pink Spotted Hybrid White Picotee Hybrid White with Pink Blush White Spotted Hybrid White Pink Spotted Hybrid Yellow Hybrid Yellow Spotted Hybrid

Helleborus atrorubens Helleborus croaticus Helleborus cyclophyllus Helleborus dumetorum Helleborus foetidus 'Gold Bullion' Helleborus foetidus 'Sopron' Helleborus foetidus 'Wester Flisk' Helleborus niger 'Semi Double' Helleborus niger 'White Magic' Helleborus x sternii Helleborus x sternii 'Clifton' Helleborus viridis

Welcome to Clifton Homestead Nursery

2009 Open Weekend – Saturday 22nd and Sunday 23rd of August –see News Page for details.

Clifton Homestead Nursery is a small wholesale nursery, located in South Otago, 21 kilometres south of Balclutha and 10 kilometres north of Clinton. The nursery started back in 1988 when we put up a small tunnel house and began to grow Chatham Island "forget me nots".

Not long after we started growing the Chathams the opportunity to grow Helleborus niger 'White Magic' came up and we started propagating these to supply local and export markets. As the nursery grew in size, so did the range of plants we grew. For a number of years we had an extensive list of perennials for sale, but the hellebores were also becoming a more important part of our operation. For the last 7-8 years we have cut out the perennials and now concentrate on hellebores.

We now grow 50,000 plants and have two large, purpose built shade-houses. The shade houses were designed specifically for growing hellebores - having a cover, to control rain, shade, to control light and temperature and height, to keep the temperature down over the summer months. Having them covered does pose watering problems and we have installed capillary watering systems to negate the need for hand watering. We have recently (2007) added another shade-house. Originally a glasshouse in

Balclutha, we relocated it and retrofitted it using a  twin skin plastic roof. It has proofed very successful and now houses all the seed plants.

The Telford Family

As well as running the nursery we run 3100 sheep, 100 beef cattle and have 350 -400 acres in wheat, barley and peas. Our children are growing up faster than we want!  Bryony now 2nd year at Otago University, Thomas in his final year at South Otago High School, and Josh is in the 3rd form at SOHS.

Helleborus Classification

Helleborus classification has been the subject of much debate over the years with differing opinions concerning   H.orientalis and its hybrids causing most of the problems.

For more details click here for our Classification Table