Trillium Time

This is a time of year when the pull of our gardens is strong.  A seemingly endless groups of tasks calls out for our attention.  This is work that we really enjoyed doing.  My retirement life plan was centered on our future gardens.  Age has made it painful to complete tasks that focus on the ground and its weeds.  Daily trips to Irma's woods have become our habit.  As a result we get to see the growth habits of these native plants as they begin their all too short life above the rotting leaves while we walk on the edge of a dirt road.

We have caught glimpses of Trillium plants pushing their tightly coiled leaves up into the air guessing at their identity.  Today we are absolutely certain that we are looking at White trilliums.  Showers are in the forecast so this bud's opening may be delayed.

 

In my youth growing up on eighteen acres that featured wooded streams at each edge of the land, I discovered a huge patch of these plants amongst the trees.  Several stems were snapped off at ground level with the flowers presented to my Mother for Mother's Day.  Her Mother told me that I was killing the plants since the nourishment providing leaves was also being removed.  Lesson learned.  We now enjoy these plants where they grow.

The two Trillium plants pictured here are minutes apart in unfolding their leaves.  The plant to the left is beginning to loosen its leaves from the tight coil that protects the leaves as they are pushed up from the ground.  The plant to the right has flattened its leaves while its bud remains out of sight.  In the upper left corner of the picture, a Bloodroot is unwinding its leaf after the flower opened.  In the center of the photo a single mottled Trout lily leaf means it will have no flower this year.  Maturity is required for this plant to send up two leaves and a flower.

As many as five Trilliums fill this photo.  Their flower display will be amazing.  Leaves in the lower right corner belong to that nasty weed Goldenrod.  Despite is small appearance its underground root system is massive.  If I tried to pull it out, Trillium plants would also be uprooted.  It would then be easy to steal those liberated plants away.  That will not happen.  The landowner's behavioral standards will be followed. 

 

Our focus has been on Bloodroot and with their leaves unfurling that picture had to be included.  The tulip shaped opening bud is presenting a new flower.  The tattered remains of a flower to the left is perhaps only three days old.  The next plant to the left shows no flower petals but is presenting the beginnings of a seed capsule even though its leaf is only now opening.  It is difficult to understand my fascination with this plant when its time of flowering is so brief.

Two days following writing this post, the flower was found inverted on the ground.  It was intact suggesting that a gust of wind lifted it free.  The good news is that a seed capsule is now forming in spite of the single leaf still being rather tightly curled.  It is amazing just how little time was needed to begin production of seeds insuring a next generation.

This is a new from seed plant in our home garden.  Its heavy pollen load will soon be dispersed and perhaps a seed capsule will follow.  The next generation is the reason flowers are formed.  Their time open is short but they accomplish their mission.
 

Native Invaders

On May 12th we were enjoying the bizarrely structured flowers displayed by our transplanted fringed polygala.  Trout lily also intrigues us and at first we were pleased to see it growing with the polygala. Canada mayflower was also moving in and its numbers seemed excessive.  Polygala is an easily displaced plant and we reluctantly reached the conclusion that the invaders had to go.  Weeding here required the summoning of all the courage we could muster.  Wishing to avoid damaging the tender one we finally moved in with delicate force.

If John Burroughs had seen a trout lily in this configuration, he would have had no difficulty in seeing how this plant placed its bulb several inches deep into the soil.  Soon new bulbs would have formed at the tips of the white roots.  One plant would have become three in a single year.  Quickly the trout lily would have crowded out the polygala.

A firm but gentle tug removed many invaders with their roots intact.  The free hand was used to hold the surrounding soil and stems in place to limit the impact on the polygala.  Weeds whose roots broke off may return but so will the determined weeder.

The bright light green leaves are new polygala growth.  A generous soaking with a watering can followed the weeding.  The tilted new growth will have to right itself since no way to help in the tangle could be found.  An unbroken stem has a good chance to straighten itself.  We continue to water here frequently and the polygala is now showing more new growth.  Carefully tending native wild flowers seems to be filled with basic contradictions.  Polygala is disappearing from our woods and intervention to try to save it seemed to be the only course.  Two daughter plants have appeared near the transplant but we can find no information defining a preferred location where this treasure can make it on its own.  For now they will remain where they are presently growing.

Trout Lily Buds And Flowers

Several years preceding my retirement were filled with dreams focused on how to pleasantly use endless days filled with free time.  John Burroughs' writings described his time spent tramping about outside close to nature.  That brought back pleasant  memories of much of my childhood time spent doing exactly the same thing.  A picture of a retirement lifestyle defined by living on remote private land gradually came into clear focus.  In 1994 dreams became reality with the purchase of the last piece of a former farm.

Trout lily was first encountered by me in a Burroughs' essay entitled Among The Wild Flowers.  It was there that he suggested several names more appropriate for this plant than the then used Adder's Tongue or Dog Tooth Violet.  Lily had to be in the name since the structure of the flower is not a violet but is a lily.  Trout accurately reflected a fish very popular to Burroughs and the timing of that fish rising to the surface of the water to feed on the first hatch of insects at the same time of year that these flowers appeared.  His suggested name became widespread and remains in common use today.  Erythronium americanum was well known to me because of frequent rereadings of this essay before I ever found the plant growing in the wild.

I was as giddy as a child on Christmas morning when a trout lily in flower was first found in our newly purchased woods.  A single yellow blossom floated above twin fresh green leaves that were mottled with brown patches.  All of this striking color had just pushed above the brown fallen leaves that carpeted the forest floor.  Further exploration revealed single leaved plants by the hundreds but only an occasional twin leaved plant in bloom.  The relative lack of flowers here made the rare find of a yellow lily flower seem precious to me.

Burroughs also wondered about just how a trout lily plant produced flowers.  Seeds fell to the forest floor and the life cycles that followed took the lily bulb ever deeper into the soil.  When the bulb was more than six inches under ground, two leaves and a flower were produced.  At more shallow placements only a single leaf grew.  Here the glacier left extremely stone filled soil and few bulbs are able to reach the deep placement necessary for flower production.  In our more than two decades spent living here we have seen many single leaved plants return year after year but the flowering plants remain rare.

A careful look at the above photo will find a flower bud still tightly wrapped by the second leaf.  Its job is to protect the bud as it is pushed thru several inches of soil and the web that is typical of the forest floor.  How such a delicate flower can open unmarked after such a journey remains a source of wonder.

This bud is almost ready to push free of the leaf.  Following years of preparation, this beautiful flower will last for only a short time.  It will be replaced by a seed capsule containing the beginnings of another generation of plants few of which will ever flower.

Forest Floor Springs To Life

It seems that snow cover was deep and continuous just a few days ago.  Unseasonable early warmth ended the snow quickly and perennial plants are now rapidly appearing.  Shooting star was purchased from cultivated stock several years ago.  Apparently foraging rodents have no taste for it as the emerging bright green shoots are numerous.  Its dried stalks were allowed to drop seed at will so we will be looking for more of these close by.   The three leaved plant is a wild columbine that grows here like a weed.  Its numbers will have to be kept in check.

Fringed polygala is evergreen but at this time of year its leaves are reddish.  The green leaves speckled with brown are new.  Trout lilies corms were inadvertently moved with the polygala and they are also highly prized.  We will see no lily flowers until each plant presents two leaves.  A number of years must pass as the corm reforms itself deeper and deeper in the soil each year.  Expecting no flowers yet, we were thrilled just to see the single leaves.  Another look is needed to see if we have twins yet.

Aconite frequently blooms while surrounded by snow.  This year the depth of the snow cover held the plant dormant until the snow was gone.  Clear bright yellow flowers like this lift my spirits now.

This bleeding heart has been modified from its natural wild form.  More compact and covered with deep bright flowers, we find it to be an improvement over its close by wild cousin.  The dark green oval leaves belong to a weed that remained unseen because of its early appearance.

This squirrel corn remains despite its inadvertent disturbance several years ago.  Now Becky is called in to closely watch my weeding activities here early in the season.

Many of these plants are woodland natives but appear here in our artificial shade garden.  A single locust tree provides both the shade and the fallen leaves and stems.  We will complete the filling of the wild shade garden with natural soil washed from the woods and diverted into a collection area near the lane.  The more demanding wild flowers will be replanted in this more natural soil.

Second Snake of the Season

It is common here for the first snake sighting of the season to be announced with a piercing scream when Becky nearly steps on a wild wiggler.  That was not the case today.  An Eastern Milksnake was soaking up some warmth from the sun while stretched out across the driveway.  One of their defensive moves is to remain motionless but that is not effective when exposed.  After a good long look, I backed the tractor  away so that I could drive around the snake.  When I returned with the camera the snake was long gone.

Another favorite place to gain some heat from the sun is under my wheelbarrows.  Sure enough when the wheelbarrow was raised a snake was exposed.  The bale of old hay under the stored wheelbarrow is there for the snakes.  Mice and voles are high on the list of food for these snakes so we encourage their presence.  Later in the day I needed my wheelbarrow and found two milksnakes under it.  This time one showed me its vibrating tail.  Impressive but not scary, I found the display some what comical since these snakes pose no threat to people.

Trout lily, Erthronium americanum, commonly occurs here as single leafed nonflowering plants.  This double leafed plant flowered but no flower or seed capsule is present.  I have always suspected that the wild turkeys were eating the flowers.  The flower that opened here was clearly eaten.

When I dug this pinxter azalea, Rhododendron nudiflorum, from the wild, it was replanted in the woods rather than at the edge of the woods.  Located with insufficient light it never flowered.  It would have been easier on the plant if I had relocated it before leaf out but I always seem to be a little late.  The tool of choice for tasks like this is a five foot steel pry bar.  If the plant is levered out with a sizable dirt ball, the move will likely be successful.

A good sized clump of forest soil is coming with the plant.  A pail of forest soil was also taken to line the planting hole.  Overnight rain added to what we hope will be a successful move.