Wednesday's Woodland Walk - Join Me!





Shooting Star - Dodecatheon meadia


Welcome to my wednesday woodland walk!
This week the weather
couldn't seem to make up its mind! One day it felt like summer, 
 the next day, I was trying to find my favorite warm sweater to put on! After a bit of a dry spell for the past several months, we had rain all weekend. We really needed rain and I'm very thankful for it - - - - -but do we really need that cold raw weather with it?

 Today, its still cold and a bit gloomy. The sun has been playing peek-a-boo with me all morning. On the bright side, the rain and cool temperatures will prolong my beautiful spring flowers much longer than if it stayed hot and dry!

White Shooting Stars and Pink Bleeding Hearts



My white Shooting Stars are blooming right now. They have beautiful spring green colored leaves that just seem to pop against the darker foliage around them.  Their amazing white flowers bloom above the leaves on tall stems allowing the flowers to hang down in white clusters, their petals grow upwards and pushed back, making them look like little shooting stars. A definite favorite of mine!

There is also a pink shooting star which is gorgeous.  I actually have one, but something seems to always happen to the flower stalk before it blooms. Last year I sadly watched my dog step on it before I could shoo her away! I guess I need to protect it somehow! 

White Bleeding Hearts

White Bleeding Hearts are just as pretty as my pink ones, they aren't as striking a color as the beautiful pink bleeding hearts but they will brighten up any shady spot in your garden. Like many of the other spring empherals, they will eventually finish blooming and their foliage will quietly die back leaving no trace of it ever being there until next year.



 



  White Trilliums, Yellow Celandine Poppies, Red Trillium,

 and Pink Bleeding Hearts snuggle around a rock

 in my sitting area along my woodland path.

My Sitting Area is one of my favorite places along my woodland path. It was inspired by two towering black walnut trees standing side by side, calling out for a bench! Across from them, sat the rock in the picture above. It was covered in virginia creeper, and other plants when I discovered it. I also created a very rustic little stone patio with the rocks I uncovered around our property while digging  other gardens, linking the bench between the black walnut trees and the large rock.  For years its been evolving as I add or change plants when necessary.

 

Oakleaf Foamflower - 

Tirella cordifolia var. collina 'Oakleaf'

I have two types of foamflower growing along my path.

 Last week the Allegany Foamflower (Tirella cordifolia) began blooming and this week the Oakleaf Foamflower has begun flowering. Don't tell them - but this one is my favorite. Their leaves are oakleaf shaped with a tinge of red and their flower buds are a deep pink opening into a pale white/pink flower, giving it that two-toned effect. They are so pretty!

Red Trilliums and violets happily growing near this protective

 rock along the path.

This is a closeup of a Red Trillium-Trillium erectum

I adore Trilliums!

 One of my goals was to establish them along 

my woodland path. I've since been successful and have white, red, and yellow trilliums. Starting with one or two plants they have finally established themselves and are multiplying very slowly, but surely. Ants are one of the chief ways seeds are dispersed. Trilliums generally take 5 years to flower from seed, which is one reason mine are multiplying so slow!
  

My Woodland path is so gorgeous, new wildflowers are blooming every day.

I hope you join me next week!

Tracey :-)

I would love to hear from you, please leave a comment, or share the type of wildflowers that are blooming in your part of the world!!







A Yellow Sea of Poppies! -Woodland Walk Wednesday

Yellow Celandine Poppies & Virginia Blues have filled

 my little patch of Heaven with a golden yellow glow!

It's hard to capture how magical
my woodland garden path looks at this moment!  
During this time of year, in my little patch of Heaven,
 the woods are aglow with hundreds of Celandine Poppies!
These beautiful yellow wildflowers are in full bloom!

While the poppies are dominating the woods
right now, there are many other native wildflowers mixed in and gorgeous in their own right. 



 Bleeding Hearts, White Foamflowers, and Blue Violets



!

Pink Bleeding Hearts

 Allegany Foamflower

Some of the flowers along the path aren't so obvious!

They make you search to find their flowers!  Right now, its the Wild Ginger plants, and soon it will be the Mayapples!

Wild Ginger patch along the path.

Their heart shaped leaves hide little maroon flowers. 

This is the maroon flower of the wild ginger plant.

 There is only one flower per plant, 

it is small and close to the ground.....

 very hard to find unless you know where to look for it!

Although I like to plant new wildflowers where I think they will thrive and be happy, I often find they will eventually move
 where they want through seeds or roots!! 

Mayapples pushing up through the mulch along the woodland path.
Notorious for spreading aggressively by roots, these will have to be moved
 or they will be trampled.


The beauty of the natural garden
 is finding a balance between keeping some structure, but also allowing the plants to find new places to settle -

like nature itself. 

Surprised by a yellow violet nestled in between the rocks
 at the top of a wall. Violets are the free spirits of the native garden!
They can pop up anywhere- but I love them and happy
 to see them most anywhere. They are a host plant and source
 of food to many butterflies and insects. There are
 certain varieties that are much less invasive
 than the common purple and white varieties.

White Trillium- It's taken me years to finally have a variety of Trilliums
growing through out my woodland garden.
The deer love to eat these!

Jacob's Ladder 

I'll end this walk with a picture of the Red-Bellied

 Woodpecker. He was busy hammering away on the tree limb above me while I was busy taking pictures for this weeks walk.  I'm so fortunate to have many different woodpeckers take up residence in our woods! I've learned through the years how to tell them apart by their call. The Red-Bellied Woodpecker has a loud chu-urr, chu-urr, chu-urro. You can find out more about this bird by clicking on  the link Red-Bellied Woodpecker below.

Red-Bellied Woodpecker - He's about 10", has a barred

 black and white back and upper wings, with a striking red crown,

 nape and lores. This little drummer is a male.

  If you look closely, they have pale red-bellies!

  

Until next week!!

Tracey :-)

My Collection of Trilliums on Wednesday's Woodland Walk

 Trillium erectum 'album'

Ahh, I just love trilliums! It has taken me years of patience to finally be able to enjoy a woodland path that is dotted with a variety of these amazing flowers! It can take up to 6-8 years for a trillium to go from seed to actually flowering, but it is soooo worth the wait!

Trillium

I discovered my first trillium while digging up ferns from a property that was going to become a road into a new housing development. I had obtained permission from the builder to take whatever plants I wanted since they were clearing everything and would soon be paved over with asphalt!  (Note: It is always important to get a property owners permission before taking a plant.  Many wildflowers are in decline, some are endangered, because of people taking them from the wild or over development. So I highly reccommend finding a nursery that grows wildflowers to buy from, unless, like this situation where the plants will be killed from construction).

It was a little nodding trillium, standing alone in the path of destruction. I'm so glad I was there to rescue it!  They are not the showiest of trilliums because its flower nods down below its leaves. After years of it blooming for me, the past two years it abruptly stopped, it is growing heartily and has actually multiplied into several plants now, so where the flowers are is another mystery!  I only have a picture of its leaves, which I'll spare you!

Purple Trillium - Trillium etectum

Many of my trilliums came in a mail order of purple trilliums years ago, they were shipped to me bareroot by a wildflower nursery. To my surprise, I think I only received a couple of actual purple trilliums.   After many years, some are just now blooming and they look a bit different!  So, I'm a bit baffled as to the exact name of some of the trilliums that have now begun blooming, one is even yellow! (I'd be thrilled if someone could identify them for me since I have spent hours on the internet trying to accurately ID them.)  It is important to make sure that the nursery you purchase wildflowers from, commercially grow them, and don't collect them from the wild. A practice we don't want to encourage since they can deplete them from an area. )

Sweet Betsy (Yellow form) orToadshade Trillium - Trillium recurvatum 'Shayi'

Whatever their names, I enjoy being surprised with their beautiful flowers each spring!

Yellow Trillium - Trillium luteum

Trillium means three-parted lily. Trilliums have three whorled leaves and a three petaled flower that comes from the center of the leaves. They can vary in color, size, mottled or solid green leaves and a host of other differences, so they can be a bit difficult to identify correctly!

Western White Trillium -Trillium ovatum (?)

White trilliums start to turn pink once they have been pollinated! This really confused me before I learned this fact. One day I was looking at a beautiful white flower and then a few days later I came out and found a pink one in its place!! I thought maybe the garden fairies were playing a trick on me!

White Trillium - Trillium grandiflorum

 Some interesting facts about Trilliums: 

* The White trillium has been known to symbolize the Holy Trinity in the Christian faith, because it's parts are in three's representing the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as being one.

*It is said that picking a white trillium off a mountain brings rain!

*The white flower of a White Trillium often is used to symbolize purity, beauty or recovery.

* The root of a trillium is used in natural medicine for a variety of ailments. 

*It was given the nickname birthroot by the indigenous North Americans who used it as a birthing aid!

*It is the state flower of Ohio.

*It is the emblem of the province of Onterio, Canada.

* Ants are the main source of how trillium seeds are spread!

Prarie Trillium - Trillium recurvatum (?)

Trilliums are often a favorite flower for the white tailed deer to dine on. Picking a trillium can seriously injure or kill the plant taking years for it to recover. Before we raised the wire fencing on our property, I had to put wire cages on my plants so they wouldn't be eaten by our local deer!

A little collection of trilliums along my woodland path!

Hope you enjoyed your walk with me today!

Have a great week! :-)

Tracey