Trilliums

I am not going to Silvan again!

Along the main road to Silvan is Marie, a great gardener who sells rare and interesting bulbs and other plants. Enticingly, the sign beams Trillium and I’m hooked. There’re also tree peonies and clivias and lilies but I just go to the polyhouse with Trillium in pinks, whites and burgundy and I, well, I drool. Marie tells me she only got seed, years ago, of T. chloropetalum and T. ludovicianum and all of her plants are derived from hybrids of these; some are quite short at ~20cm, so seem more similar to T. ludovicianum, and with corresponding wonderful dark leaves or dappled; others are tall at ~45cm with paler leaves and these are the only ones with white flowers (and some pink, some burgundy); these seem close to T chloropetalum giganteum.

Wonderful woodland plants for some shade. Glorious but expensive.

Last year I started moving my pots of Trillium out from the shadehouse when they flowered, so that pollinating insects could fly about and I might have seed set (not all that successful, actually). This year a gardener said to me that wallabies shouldn’t eat them; now I’ve heard this before and I’m wary. But that’s easy; I pick out one with a muddy-coloured flower that I won’t miss and I leave it where the wallabies will roam as an indicator plant. So far: not a nibble. I might dare plant a few out – not my favourite ones! – in the shade of the white deciduous dogwoods. Imagine a drift in a few years…

Josie’s Joy, Rare bulbs & plants, www.stores.ebay.com.au/josies-joy