Deborah Cooke: Author

Trilliums are the provincial flower of Ontario. They grow wild in the woods – usually under mature maple trees – and make a spectacular display this time of year. They’re usually white, but sometimes the flowers are pink or even purple. It’s illegal to pick trilliums, but it is legal to transplant and propagate them.

I love trilliums. One of the advantages of this house is that it has a lot of big old maple trees. It was a challenge for me to garden, both because the trees have been busily emptying the soil of nutrients for a century or so and because the full shade makes it tough to have flowers. I like flowers in the garden. I was used to gardening with partial sun, and in a warmer garden zone.

Which is a long way of saying that there have been many deaths in this garden. The first year was pretty depressing that way. I’ve been trying to move to more local plants and more plants that I see thriving in other gardens around here.

So, I was pretty excited last year to find someone at the farmer’s market selling potted trilliums. Trilliums grow locally. Trilliums love shade. Trilliums, once established, merrily try to take over the vicinity. Now, trilliums are known to be a bit particular – they dislike being transplanted and I suspect they have issues with soil pH. I planted mine under the maples and crossed my fingers. They did what trilliums do after they bloom – they disappeared.

Were they dead? Or just doing what trilliums do? We had a very dry summer and I wasn’t sure what to expect.

I had a very bad feeling about the trilliums and their survival.

Last weekend, three spires emerged from the ground in the general vicinity of where I had planted the trilliums. And this week, the trilliums bloomed. I was so excited! We have three stems instead of two, so they’re propagating too. Woo HOOO!

Please, please, tell me that you get this excited about plants in your garden.