trilliums
Mary Sue Ittner (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