Thanks, guys. Surrounding that hellebore is the extremely evil 'goutweed' (identified for me by Deb/BH on DG a few years ago.) Eradication attempts have failed, so I've taken Deb's advice to just coexist with it. NEVER plant it. It came with my house. Very few plants can compete with it, so I've spent a lot of money on shade plants in this bed that just can't compete with the goutweed, unfortunately , and they don't return the following year. Astilbe are ok here. Plus the Japanese iris look promising.
