Disappointment Four Years In The Making

Trilliums have been on our must have list for many years.  Giant Whites and Stinking Benjamins are well represented in our two shade gardens.  We have wanted Painted Trilliums for what seems like forever.  Despite our past habit of frequent woodland hikes, we have yet to see a natural occurrence of that beautiful flower.  We have also never seen it offered for sale.  A search taken just minutes ago did offer seeds for this plant.  We would be 84 years old before a Trillium from seed might be seen.  No order was placed.

When we first saw this bud we expected our long wait to be nearly over as this plant was sold to us as Painted trillium.  Daily visual checks were made for the past two weeks and we could barely contain our delight.

This purple colored bud is all wrong for the mostly white colored flower that we were expecting but that realization did not hit home for entirely too long.  We did order these plants four years ago.  No above ground growth appeared during their first year with us.  Pathetic is an appropriate description for the small plants that did appear over the next two years.  This year their appearance strongly suggested that our wait for a flower might be over.

 

When the realization that the petal color was all wrong we continued to wait for the typical blossom configuration of flat petals.  That has not happened and never will.  This hands over head is as open as these plants ever present.  Trillium cuneatum or Little Sweet Betsy goes about the business of pollination from this position.

 

This is the other flowering plant from the six purchased.  Each is close to another plant but that increase in number happened only as the result of underground action.  This is as close as we will ever get to having a Painted trillium.  We would happily settle for simply seeing this plant in the wild if anyone would share the location of this apparently rare treasure.
 

New Plants Every Day

To most this would appear to be a picture of nothing.  It seems that five wooden Popsicle sticks are scattered on the surface of ground dead leaves.  Sharp eyes might see the letters PT on the markers.  It may be hard to believe that we were wildly excited by what we saw here this morning.

In the Fall of 2017, we placed an order for dormant plant parts from Tennessee Wholesale Nursery.  The following Spring nothing grew where we had placed the root-stocks.  A call of complaint was made and we were assured that  we would see live plants in another year.  We were understandably skeptical but were assured that the guarantee would be honored if nothing grew.  So we waited.

This morning we were thrilled to see Painted Trilliums growing near four of the plant markers.  One of the plants had sent up two stems and we will likely see the remaining plant soon.  We fully expect that flowers may be a year or two away as these plants adjust to their new home.  We are more than willing to wait since we have never seen this plant in the wild despite its being reported as common in the Catskills.  We now have live plants that spent a year and one half totally hidden from view.  One has to wonder just what the plant pieces were doing for that length of time.

Here we have two old friends.  The three heavily veined closed leaves mark the appearance of Wild Ginger.  Our new shade garden is the third location that this plant has occupied.  It is just possible that this carefully chosen spot will support growth appropriate for a ground cover.  The bright cluster of leaves belong to Sweet Woodruff.  This nonnative was not part of the planned transplanting but came along uninvited.  It is not by choice that we will allow this alien to remain here.

The Unadilla River Valley has been home to dairy cows ever since European immigrants first arrived on this land.  In the last few years, the size of the dairies has exploded with hundreds of cows never leaving the huge shed on a factory farm.  Manure is drained into huge circular cement ponds where it waits its time to be spread on the fields.  Yesterday the manure tanker made many trips to coat the entire field with this slippery brown gold.  Needless to say the smell of pit manure is nothing like the wholesome scent of old fashioned manure mixed with straw bedding.  Putrid is a descriptive word that is nearly vile enough to describe the stench.

The owners of Cobar Farms are both former students of mine.  We find them to be remarkably considerate since the manure on this field is always turned under the day following its application.  For the size of their dairy operation, this is a really small field but they are excellent neighbors.

Rain is in the forecast for the next several days.  That should send more perennial plants into visible above ground growth.  This year's gardens are truly underway.