OK, I’ll admit it. I’m a sucker for Trilliums. They’ve been among my favorite wildflowers for more than 50 years. According to the USDA PLANTS database, there are more than 35 species of Trillium in North America (plus a bunch of subspecies and varieties).

In our garden and woods we only have two species of Trillium. The one at the top of this post is Giant Purple Wakerobin, Trillium kurabayashii, which is native to southern Oregon and northern California. We’ve been growing a small clump of these for a few years and they’re looking particularly good this spring. Continue reading →

Red-flowering Currants, Ribes sanguineum, are coming into their own right now in our garden and woodland border. This common and showy native shrub is a great choice for Pacific Northwest gardens. It’s rightly popular and I see it planted in many home landscapes around Bellingham and elsewhere in our region. Continue reading →

Yesterday evening I walked down our woodland path to check on our small patch of Western Trilliums, Trillium ovatum. We have them in three or four places along the paths in our woods and I’d seen the first two stems, with their leaves just beginning to unfurl, among the Bleeding Heart a few days earlier. Those were a bit further along and I spied a third stem a couple of feet away.

What I hadn’t seen a few days ago was this little clump of four stems among the moss on the other side of the path. But here they were, leaves unfurled and tiny white dots suggesting flowers would be coming along soon. Why didn’t I see them before? Probably because they were a couple of feet further back from the path than I’d remembered. Continue reading →