Plant Long-Lived Trillium in Your Perennial Garden

Trilliums just have to be the most beloved wildflower of any native or non-native plant that I can think of. Many folks that I chat plants with remember them fondly from childhood walks in the woods with their grandparents. Trilliums are very easy to grow and are a long-lived perennial plant whose size can double every year when taken proper care of. And all “proper care” means is just keeping them weeded and fed with a good perennial plant food and mulched to keep them from totally drying out during dry spells — that’s all there is to it!

Over the years, I’ve seen them offered by some of the major mail order garden retailers such as Wayside Gardens and White Flower Farm for exorbitant prices of up to $30.00 each, with the justification that they were difficult to propagate. That myth couldn’t be further from the truth!

While the time span required to achieve a mature flowering plant from seed can be as long as 7 years, rhizome propagation is much quicker, easier and more fruitful. And I know from experience, as I’ve spent the last 30-plus years building production stock beds of well over 100,000 trillium plants.

Trillium Species to Plant and Companion Plants

I’ve been busy filling a pipeline with many species in the genus Trillium, mainly the most popular and well known, Trillium grandiflorum, but also large production blocks of many other species such as T. erectum, T. cuneatum, T. luteum, T. recurvatum and T. pusillum with its delicate ruffled edges and purple flower backs.

There’s a whole host of companion plants that Trilliums are right at home with, plants like Arisaema, Jeffersonia, Uvularia, Hellebores, Hepatica’s, Ferns and, well, just use your imagination.