Connecticut gardeners have been missing out on one of the most iconic of spring plants, thanks to the perpetual snow. But not to worry, because the showy sepals of the hellebore are probably already out and happy, and they will be around for several more weeks, according to Barry Glick, owner of Sunshine Farm and Gardens in Greenbrier County, W.Va.

Glick, who's known as "King of the Hellebores" and "Glicksterus maximus" in mock botanical Latin because of more than 40 years of plant breeding, is talking non-stop about hellebores and native plants this weekend in Connecticut. He's the closing act at the Connecticut Master Gardeners Association Symposium in Manchester on Saturday and the main event Sunday night at Connecticut's Hardy Plant Society meeting in Wethersfield. Both events are open to the public.

"Hellebores are amazing plants for a multitude of reasons," said Glick. "They are tough, long-lived perennials, native to mainland Europe and the Balkans."

Glick, who used to cut his north Philadelphia high school classes to hitchhike to the lush plant collections of Longwood Gardens and Winterthur, was one of the early cult growers of hellebores. After Martha Stewart put them on the cover of her magazine, he said they really took off in popularity.

In fact, hellebores have become the number-one home-grown cut flower, according to Glick, who calls them indestructible. The greatest attribute, in both West Virginia and Connecticut, is that the deer ignore them.

Often called the winter rose, Christmas rose or Lenten rose because they are some of the first showy plants in late winter or spring, hellebores aren't closely related to Rosaceae roses.

It's the 1- to 3-inch-long sepals, not the actual flowers that are so attractive and long-lasting, from February through May, in colors ranging from creams and pale greens to pinks, corals and dark purples. The flowers are primitive, the centers are a ring of small cup-like nectaries that hold nectar.

"In their native haunts, they are meadow plants, the early spring sun that they are exposed to is not so strong, and then the meadow grows up and provides summer shade," he said. Recommended as shade garden and woodland plants in southern states, Glick says they can be grown in full sun here. Even if the foliage gets a bit ragged, the sunlight encourages root growth which leads to more flowers next year.

Glick claims to grow virtually every hellebore species in the genus, having spent the last decade combing the Earth for new germplasm. The farm maintains more than 50,000 flowering size stock plants for seed production. This includes the Helleborus x hybridus "Sunshine Selections," produced with labor-intensive hand-pollination. He says these are the only commercially available line of true F1 hybrids, and sells them online as well as at the farm.

He takes off the month of April to be back at Sunshine Farm when six acres of hellebores are in bloom, and he welcomes visitors. While he positions the farm's stock as rare and exceptional plants for the discriminating gardener and farmer, he says the basic denominator is "idiot-proof plants." That includes Geums, commonly known as Avens, an herbaceous perennial in the Rosaceae family, ranging from 8 to 12 inches tall, with fuzzy leaves and bright blooms in May. His fellow plantsman, Brent Horvath, Intrinsic Perennial Gardens wholesale nursery in Hebron, Illinois has been developing new cultivars named after cocktails.

This isn't Glick's first swing through Connecticut - which he considers one of the top 10 horticultural states - to meet with gardening enthusiasts. Years back, he toured the Connecticut College Arboretum.

"There are so many serious plant people in Connecticut, including native plants growers," he said.

Glick's other botanical passion is East Coast native plants, which he also grows on his farm. He was one of the founding members of the North American Plant Preservation Council in 1993, modeled after England's National Council for the Conservation of Plants and Gardens. Now maintained by the American Public Gardens Association as the North American Plant Collections Consortium, it is a continent-wide approach to plant germplasm preservation and promotion of high standards of plant collections management.

Listen to Barry Glick on "CT Outdoors" with Suzanne Thompson today from 1 to 1:30 p.m. and on Sunday, March 22, from 7 to 7:30 a.m. on WLIS 1420 AM and WMRD 1150 AM or at www.wliswmrd.net.