Flowering season for the southeastern US native trilliums is just beginning, with many running up to a month behind normal. The first to open each year is the north Florida population of Trillium maculatum, represented here by Trillium maculatum ‘Kanapaha Giant’. We will have trilliums flowering from now through April. The key to success is to purchase nursery propagated plants, instead of those dug from the wild. In the garden, average to slightly moist soils, and light shade to morning sun are the perfect conditions. Although we grow thousands of trillium from seed each year, it’s a 4-5 year process to get them to flowering size. If your garden soil is healthy with lots of compost, you should see them quickly start seeding around in your own garden.
Are you interested in learning more about trilliums? If so, we invite you to join our staff taxonomist, Zac Hill, on Saturday, March 22, 2025 here at the gardens for a deep dive into the world of trilliums: taxonomy, best growing practices, and how to identify different species. This class, Trillium, the Gateway Perennial, will also include a look behind the scenes at our research and production area, where we will see how we grow Trilliums to sell at Plant Delights Nursery. Register today!
Kanapaha is just about a mile down the road from me and I see their trilliums bloom most springs. I rarely see them anywhere else and hadn’t realized theirs were unusually large but now that you point it out I do see it.
Have you considered paid for zoom presentations for special interests like Trillium class?? I would be willing to pay since I can’t come to in person classes and I know it takes time and effort to prepare classes. I live in Michigan and have visited whenever possible but there is a need for content for the more advanced gardeners out here. We aren’t all beginners but it seems we all like to learn. Thank you for sharing your knowledge !!!!
Darlene
This is a walking class, so that makes it really difficult to Zoom. For the future, we can certainly look at doing Zoom only classes, where they can be done from a computer. Thanks for asking.