Whenever I think of trilliums, I recalled a spring day more than 20 years ago. I was traveling across Vermont and stopped at a train cross. Just as I began to pull away, I happened to look across the car to the fields on the opposite side, and in an instant, I hit the brakes.
There, only a short distance away, was an enormous expanse, acres, and acres, of Trillium grandiflorum! It was a sight such as I’d never seen before and which I certainly will never forget.
As I recall it now, a tiny bit of woodland, primarily silver maples and other trees that would tolerate the wet ground, fringed the field so that the direct rays of the sun were broken for a considerable distance into the open area.
The woodland and the entire open area were a solid sheet of white. There were not merely thousands of trilliums; there were millions!
Today, less than a mile from my home, there is a small woodland patch that each spring is carpeted with the largest Trillium grandiflorum I’ve ever seen.
But no display of trilliums will ever surpass that earlier one, with its accompanying spring sunshine, its pleasing smell of thawing fields, its willows and poplars in full flower, and its gray birches unfolding their leaves.
More than any display of tulips or daffodils or greening lawns and spreading trees, that gigantic splash of snow trilliums was my lifetime’s mightiest realization of the glory of spring.
Some 30 species of trilliums are scattered over North America, with countless forms, no doubt, varying in color from the typical bloom.
Keep Hardy From Freezing
Most of these are hardy in New England, with no more than nominal protection of boughs or leaves to keep them from too much freezing and thawing during the winter. However, some more care must be given to locating them in the garden and the soils in which they are planted.
So far as I know, all trilliums are found growing in the partial shade of deciduous woodland. That means that during their flowering period, there is a considerable amount of sun and moisture.
Then, as the tree leaves grow, the trillium flowers fade, the seed pods form, and there is a gradual ripening of the foliage, with dryer soil conditions causing the thick root to harden. Some varieties lose their foliage very quickly; others will still be green in the fall months.
I have noted that it has always been best when growing plants of this type in the garden to place them in dryer soil than they endure in nature.
Incidentally, although the finest flower displays are usually on wet soils in the wild, the more extensive roots are almost always found on dryer ground. During the dormant period, trilliums must be dry and cool.
To ensure this, place them under other permanent plants on the border, put them on the north side of the home, or see that they have a mulch of leaves or lawn clippings.
Usually Found Under The Surface
Most of them grow at a depth of about 3″ inches when cultivated, but in the wild, they are usually found just under the surface, mainly if there is a permanent cover of leaves and small growth.
As for soils, I do not consider trilliums hard to please. At the same time, certain kinds are found on heavy clay loams and others on sandy or silty ground; all seem to grow equally well on good garden soil, without extremes of acidity or alkalinity.
If your soil has a reaction of about pH 6, is well drained and relaxed in summer, and if it lacks much decaying vegetable matter or manure, you should have little difficulty.
This last stipulation may sound odd, but in my experience, trillium roots grow in the top level of mineral soil, just below the duff and humus of the wood floor, and I have seen definite evidence of rotting in over-rich soils.
Although I have grown most of the available trilliums in open beds or a shaded bower here in Vermont, I shall confine my comments to those I am familiar with in their wild state in this area, which I frankly consider far superior to those obtainable from other regions.
Four trillium species are common in New England, though found in other areas.
Two of the four are among the showiest members of the family, with flowers above the average in size and the blooms held erect above the foliage in such a way that one is instantly aware of them when seen in the distance.
The other two are less commonly found and have the charm of rarity.
by F Abbey