trilliums

Mary Sue Ittner msittner@mcn.org
Wed, 08 Jul 2015 07:13:52 PDT
Here where I live in coastal northern California the most common 
Trillium is T. ovatum. I too lost T. chloropetalum. Unlike John, I 
had the best luck with direct seeding plants where I thought they 
would grow well. I grew some in pots, but lost them in subsequent 
years but that may have been because I didn't keep watering them all 
summer, even when they were dormant. If you have looked at the 
thickened rhizome they retreat to in our dry summers you wonder how 
they survive since it isn't very substantial. Going into a third year 
of drought we still saw plants this year on our hikes in the wild, 
but not nearly as many as in previous years and both the bloom season 
and leaf season was much shorter than usual. I don't know if we'd see 
a come back with a more normal winter if and when we get one, but 
even in these past three years of drought we got much more rain than 
San Diego. And as John Wickham noted for T. chloropetalum, we have 
cool summer temperatures and a lot of fog/high clouds. You find the 
most plants of Trillium ovatum in places that are shady and are late 
to dry out. This year however I expect some of those places are 
already very dry.

Andrew and I have shared plants in the past and found that what was 
happy in his part of California wasn't always happy in my part of the 
state and the same for him.

Mary Sue




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