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Trillums

bigred
19 years ago

I have several dz. in my greenhouse. I said I wasn't going to put them in the ground until DH put in that sprinkler system he's been promising me for about 5 yrs. Now he's working out of town 5 days a week so I've given up hope and need the bench space in the greenhouse. Can I plant them now?

PP

Comments (14)

  • Georgiarose
    19 years ago

    Fall is best time to transplant them. I assume they are dormant now? Most of mine are, except for a few that I grow in pots, grandiflorum, viride, luteum, but they wll be shortly.

  • Barbaraga
    19 years ago

    Now is a good time to plant trilliums. Some of the more southern varieties grow their roots in the fall and winter like trees.

    For good blooms make sure they get adequate water in the fall.

  • vbain
    19 years ago

    Why not just put a soaker hose in there. They would benefit more from that, and it would save water.

  • jgaughran
    19 years ago

    Do deer eat trillium?

  • razorback33
    19 years ago

    Deer love them. In many areas, Trilliums are slowly disappearing due to repeated annual grazing by the ever expanding deer population.
    Rb

  • LauraZone5
    19 years ago

    Many Trilliums are a deer delicacy. I planted about 400 Trillium grandiflorums and all but maybe 10 or so were devoured. These plants were $3 a piece and I purchased them in an attempt to restore my property here. I am not happy about the $$$ loss let alone the labor to get them in the ground.

    All the people out there planting Deer resistent plants perpetuates the issues as the deer don't generally eat them in favor of consuming what they can digest. We're starving them out to one degree or another when we choose plants they can't or won't eat. Best to place stakes and chicken wire up around your plants until they establish and until the herd numbers in your area are under control. Then, you might want to consider supporting your local hunters.

  • kevin_5
    19 years ago

    Hey Laura!

    Trilliums really are deer candy. The clumps of T. grandiflorum in the woods I used to own were getting mowed down twice a year, and never flowering. They will be eliminated soon now that the Forest Preserve owns the land. Deer hunters can't stop the tide. The nursery down the street has nuisance permits that allow them to use spotlights at night, as well as shotguns instead of bow and arrows, and they still can't keep up. There is not a day that goes by that I don't see one dead on the side of the road, yet still they persist in an overpopulated state. I put a fence up around my 3 acres, and it is such a relief. They hang out around the outside, walk about, and move along. Within the fence is a sanctuary, where small plants can actually grow to maturity, where invasives don't even have a chance, and where plants can flower and fruit as they were meant to. I have never had the luxury of planting out a tree seedling and seeing it grow unmolested. A dream come true. How goes the good fight at your place?

  • LauraZone5
    19 years ago

    Kevin... you braggart you!

    We tried to get a variance to enclose the entire property and failed miserably. The people around here do like their unobstructed views. Well, except the horse fences... those are still ok.

    We did get another 1000 buckthorn this year and we made an incredible dent in the garlic mustard and the Dame's Rocket. Probably only a few thousand buckthorns to go and a few hundred honeysuckles. Struggling with Crack Willow, Reed Canary Grass, Phragmites, Narrow Leaf Cattail, and Purple Loosestrife. May go for a massive attack with Rodeo this spring. I actually tried to send you photos of how pock marked the property looks over here but your old e-mail address I had for you was no longer valid. I figured the photos would be good for a chuckle. Gladys Kravitz has stopped reporting me for cutting down "trees".

    Major losses this spring due to flooding of the Des Plaines River and then the ensuing drought. Hundreds of plants rotted in the water that was standing for weeks and then many that made it through the floods were trashed because my hose couldn't get back 1000+ feet on the property to water what I planted and to add insult to injury...I screwed myself up over the summer and couldn't haul water back myself. It got to the point that I didn't even want to look out the window there for a while. Also too, I waited too long to place my order for Miracle Tubes last spring and I lost hundreds of bareroots and saplings to deer waiting for the tubes to come in. That'll teach me for being cheap and not placing an order for tubes at the same time I placed the orders for trees. Everything that was left standing is now tubed!

    Seriously Kevin, I am VERY happy for you. Sort of green with envy at your good fortune but glad somebody is getting relief. Pssst... I got on the Acres For Wildlife program so next fall I'll get to order trees from the state nursery.

  • LauraZone5
    19 years ago

    Kevin, you will have mail shortly!

  • Hooti
    19 years ago

    Since the trillium are bulbs (bulblets? corms? anyhow little bulby things) will they not just come up again in the spring?

    I have a supply of moveable protectors of various types (old cages with the bottoms cut out, portable fencing, wire trash cans, etc) I cover plants while they are getting established. I guess that doesnt work for 400 though (dreams about what it would be like to have 400 trilliums).

    I have deer wander onto my property nearly every evening (I hear them crashing around just at dusk and see the footprints in the soft ground) and the only real problem I have had is in the spiing and fall when they seem to get odd cravings, and winter when they eat anything they can find (not a problem for herbaceus perrenials as they arent up then).

    I have a bigger problem with digging mammals as they dig the flowers up when looking for worms or whatever in the compost/soft dirt of new plantings.

    Laura, I am sorry for your loss. I hope that in the spring many will come back. The wire trash cans I use are sold at the dollar stores (every one of them have them here I think) for a dollar apiece. They can be staked in using bent pieces of old clothes hangers. You cant save 400 that way, but maybe you can save some if they do come back up.

    I will refrain from discussion on how we ruin the ecological balance by eradicating natural preditors then complain that nature is being obnoxious. I hope that we can all find a way to live with and appreciate nature while protecting our plants using non destructive means such as coverings or planting fodder on the other side of the property to draw them away (I have a hay field across the street, not mine, but it may be why I dont have deer problems). In any case, as long as we live against nature and not with, there will be more and more problems, and we will have to kill off more and more species - what a sad way our descendants will live!!!!!!!

    PAX
    Laurette

  • franeli
    19 years ago

    Laura,
    What a struggle you have had and what a project!
    I still have oodles of honeysuckle to deal with.
    The viburnum beetle is killing off my highbush cranberries and the beaver are still cutting trees(have fenced off the big trees).
    Deer are quite the problem where you live, not really bad here.

  • seedlady4
    19 years ago

    Try spraying a slurry of bloodmeal & water and spraying around your Trilliums---it lasts quite a while. Also, you can steep pizza pepper flakes in water for 12 minutes, strain, cool, and spray. With this mixture you will have to spray more often since it can wash off with watering or rain. I tried a little veg. oil but if the plants are exposed to sun they may burn.

  • doucanoe
    19 years ago

    My German Shepherd is the best deer deterrent I have ever known! They must be able to smell him because they don't come anywhere near the house, although we see them often on our road and at the other end of our 20 acres.
    My woods are full of "unmolested" trilliums, ferns, ginger, hepatica etc.

    Linda

  • LauraZone5
    19 years ago

    Hi Pax! Agreed. I'd love to be able to handle a rifle to shoot Bambis in hunting season but I don't have it in me. Incidentally, I am for the reintroduction of natual predators and I joined the NRA this past year. Never thought I'd ever give those people my money.

    Hi franelli! Could be worse. I don't have beaver or the viburnum beetle. What the H E double hockey sticks is that and is it coming my way? Hey, I got gypsy moth! Does that count for anything? Oh ya, clear wing borers and bronze birch borers too. I have no doubt the EAB is on its way toward me within the next few years but no viburnum beetles. I gotta look that up.

    Hi seedlady! Bloodmeal is a little too intense for trillium. The deer here eat right through chili pepper and red cayenne that I bought in bulk from Sam's Club. I let my kids pee on the property and that didn't work. Big dogs, got three of those. Worthless dogs more interested in sniffing garbage cans that neighbors set out, absolutely worthless! I have tried every repellent known to mankind. I have shelves of expensive products and concoctions that don't work. Miracle tubes are a big help for saplings but stakes and chicken wire are about all that I will use now for the Trilliums I ordered for this coming spring. The tubes don't protect trees from rutting. I gave hunters permission to sit in my kid's tree fort and have a go at as many Bambis as they could get this past fall. That helps.

    Hi doucanoe! "unmolested" trilliums, ferns, ginger, hepatica etc." This is an alien concept to me. I've got 3 dogs and you've only got one. I have 5 acres and you have 20. Something is fundamentally wrong here and I'm thinking I got the short end of the stick gosh darn it all.

    All will be fine. The deer can't get them all. Keep plugging along planting and protecting natives.

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