Chris Potts wrote:
Hello all,

I have ambitions to grow trilliums, and in the autumn of 2002 I
bought a collection of five bare rooted plants which I planted as
instructed in a semi-shaded place in soil to which I had added lots
of garden compost. The first spring these five plants produced
three
leaves but I was not unduly concerned because the blurb that came
with the collection said that even if they did not produce leaves
in
the first season they would be beavering away producing a root
system
underneath.

Last spring one of them T cuneatum produced a single leaf with a
flower, I found another, T erectum, had worked to the surface, so I
planted it in a pot, where it produced a single leaf and I dug up
another one,
T grandiflorum, and put it in a pot where it produced a single
leaf.
There was no sing of the other two.

This year the T cuneatum is again going to produce a single shoot,
the
two in pots have yet to show, but obviously there is still time.

Is there any way that I can help these plants to increase? I have
spent nearly 30 pounds and have produced six leaves and one flower
in
three seasons. I live in North Lincolnshire, a very dry area, and
the soil is improved clay which is slightly alkaline.

Never grown them; but from memory they're woodland plants and want a
very humus-rich soil which doesn't dry out, and at least dappled
shade. Again from fallible memory, I fancy they may not be too
partial to alkalinity. The nursery should have given you full
instructions: it's naughty that they apparently didn't.

I'd give them a good mulch of well-rotted compost or peat substitute
every year, also digging a lot in around them without damaging the
roots. But the environment you have may be too hostile for them.

Now wait for me to be totally contradicted by somebody who grows
them.

Mike.