Trillium 2009

[Gerdk]

Nice batch of seedlings!
How long does it take until first flowers?

Gerd

[Mike Ireland]

Hi Gerd
Flowering in about 5-6 years.

[Paul T]

Mike,

Well if you've ever got seed of that dark form to spare.....?   

Nice range of colours.  I love all of them.  Good leaf colouration too, which is of course what you see far more of than the flowers.  Great to see both the parents and the offspring... Thanks for sharing.

[Lesley Cox]

A lovely batch Mike, especially - for me - the pink in picture 3. 5-6 years from seed is very good.

[Paul T]

Lesley,

Oh I loved the pink as well..... I liked them all.  Just seeing the variety of colour that could come from seed from the dark form is wonderful!

[Rodger Whitlock]

Three photos of trilliums flowering here.

DSC01079_resize.JPG: a sweep of Trillium albidum. This clone is very sweetly scented and muliplies well vegetatively. I have never seen it set seed.

DSC01081_resize.JPG: Trillium rivale 'Del Norte'. This originally came to me as seed under the name "Trillium ovatum × rivale" but it's no such thing. It may be a polyploid, given its larger size and greater vigor than "ordinary" Trillium rivale (as though any trillium were "ordinary"!)

DSC01082_resize.JPG: Part of a patch of trilliums raised from seed, including enough variation that I am unwilling to put a name to them. Sets seed, which germinates modestly in the moist, shady site.

[Paul T]

Rodger,

I like that pale pink in the left of the seedlings shot.  Very delicate colour.  The "sweep" is glorious!!!

[Anthony Darby]

Here are some forms of Trillium grandiflorum and T. pusillum. The first T. g. forma roseum refuses to increase.

[Rodger Whitlock]

I like that pale pink in the left of the seedlings shot.  Very delicate colour.  The "sweep" is glorious!!!

You know how cameras lie? Well, it lied in this case. That coloration is due to the same pigment that colors the various deep maroon trillium species, and is not a good, clear pink (alas!)

[Paul T]

Rodger,

Bummer!    That sort of colour would be wonderful.  I have a pale lavender sessile type that is rather lovely.  It is one of a bunch of seedlings from a suspected albidum parent (we "think" that is what the white plant is, anyway).  I was given a bunch of seedlings a few years ago, expecting them to be all like the parent (which was white with a purple throat) until they started flowering and I've had white, purple, lavender so far.... and only a few of the seedlings have flowered so far.  Very, very pleased with the results as the non-whites have been colours I didn't already possess!!    Always cool to happily find something new you didn't know you had. 

Thanks so much for the pics, both of you.  Just the dormant noses sitting jsut above ground here at the moment Trillium-wise.  So cool to see them in flower up there in the northern hemisphere at the moment.  I hope to one day successfully grow grandiflorum, but as yet I haven't managed to get one to live here more than a couple of years, although I have sown seed the last couple of years again (from you Anthony, as I recall  ) so we shall see what happens. 

[Rodger Whitlock]

The first T. g. forma roseum refuses to increase.

There are several methods for encouraging a reluctant trillium to be fruitful and multiply. One involves grass skirts, nose bones, necklaces of human teeth, oddly shaped drums, and assorted other paraphernalia difficult to acquire, as well as the consumption of intoxicating herbs and fungi, so I'll skip over it.

Another involves deliberately wounding the rhizome. As the wound heals, with a little luck new growing points will develop from the scar tissue. Lift the rhizome about now, then using a new razor blade make an incision the length of the rhizome cutting from the skin inwards no more than 25% of the thickness. Do this on both sides. Immediately replant and be patient. Throw the razor blade away lest you use it on other plants and unwittingly transmit viral infections.

If the operation is a success, in a year or three you will see extra growing points emerge in the spring. Give these one year to size up a little, then again lift the parent rhizome, pluck off any new growing points that have any feeder roots, and replant everything immediately. My impression is that once a trillium root has been disturbed by wounding, it will continue to proliferate new growing points indefinitely.

If all this talk of wounding a precious plant seems too risky a prospect, restrict your surgery to one side of the rhizome and only toward the end away from the growing point.

If you are careful, you can simply unearth the rhizome and perform the surgery without actually lifting it, as trilliums root from the underside of their rhizomes.

Another method, even more frightening, is to lift the rhizome and slice it up. Treat all cut surfaces with sulfur to forestall fungi, and replant in clean soil after allowing the wounds to callus over for a few days. I haven't tried this method myself.

Don't forget seed! If your two pink T.g. plants are different clones (or even if they are the same, maybe), a little deft work with a small paintbrush may work wonders. Trilliums are generally slow to flower from seed, but not impossibly so. I recommend leaving trillium seedlings in pots until they have formed a true three-fold leaf in a few years, then planting them out. They are really happier in the ground than in pots, but the young seedlings are so frail that they demand protection from the rough and tumble of the open garden while in infancy.

[Paul T]

I've tried the slicing and dicing method on Paris polyphylla with surprising success.  If interested, see the topic 'Butchering Paris Polyphylla" (or something close to that in name), where I show photos of the results.

[Guff]

Noticed this Trillium this morning. Not like my normal red's, this is two toned with green on the backsides of the flower. The pistols are different also.

[Anthony Darby]

I may try the wounding, but as it is the only one I have I'm reluctant? I'm hoping that I can split 'Jenny Rhodes' this year? It has 11 flowers just opening, and there seem to be some small shoots moving away from the centre?

[ichristie]

Hi again all, some super pictures and at last i post some more taken tonight in the garden,  cheers Ian the Christie kind.

Tr erectum hyb 3_resize.JPG
 Tr erectum hyb possiblly_resize.JPG
 Tr erectum hyb x 3_resize.JPG
 Tr erectum hyb._resize.JPG
 Tr hybrid dont know_resize.JPG
 TR simile 1_resize.JPG
 Tr sulcatum Eco white 2_resize.JPG
 Trillium erectum hyb 5_resize.JPG
 Trillium simile 4_resize.JPG
 Trillium sulcatum Eco white_resize.JPG