OTAGO PENINSULA

- The care and love that go into looking after heirloom trilliums.

Susan More lives at Halfway Bush, slightly more than 300m above the city centre. This brisk climate is perfect for trilliums which come from cooler mountains so need a rest in winter. Susan and her husband David, purchased their property of 2.2ha in 1972. First up, the rhododendrons here were her heart’s delight. These rhododendrons got bigger and brighter, as they do, then Susan’s preference moved on to trees with their more subtle and diverse attributes. The trees got bigger too but you can plant under them, which is just as well, for an enduring passion came upon Susan for dainty woodland plants.

A gift of a pot of tiny trillium seedlings, given to Susan 40 years ago, ignited this passion. Since then, Susan has grown trilliums from seed from overseas, and from local seed exchanges with other enthusiasts.

Trillium seeds are only viable if they are crossed from two different strains, and if the seeds have dried out, they take an extra year to germinate. The seeds send down just a root in the first spring, and a leaf blade that looks like a blade of grass in the second year from sowing. It is said that they take seven years from seed to flower, more or less (Susan says it is generally more).

She grows her smaller trilliums in containers, safer for tiny treasures, but woodland plants are grown under trees. They are fed sheep pellets but not a lot; it’s more important to give plants a leafy mulch as they would have in nature.

Trilliums don’t like being moved around and take a little time to recover so are best left to thrive and slowly make those mouth-watering clumps.

Trillium means three – three leaves, three sepals, three petals. Trillium chloropetalum is a name used in New Zealand for a swarm of large trilliums, probably hybrids of several species all from the mountains on America’s west coast. Plants acquired in our country under this name can be, most usually, white, but also pink, red, dark wine and occasionally yellow. The pink flower above was the much-loved Trillium rivale, reclassified in 2002 as Pseudotrillium rivale.

Like-minded people form friendships. The Trillium Group was started 20 years ago. They have an annual get-together when they look at gardens and have a plant sale. Susan’s most knowledgeable plant friend and mentor was the late Stuart Preston who gardened at Mosgiel. They grew and swapped plants – and knowledge. They entertained northern hemisphere experts, and so their knowledge and collections grew.

Stuart died eight years ago in tragic circumstances. Then Susan found out that she was the heir to his comprehensive collection of special plants including rare forms of trilliums. It was winter and she had to dig the plants up before the property was sold. She had to guess and try to remember where they were; looking for buried treasure. Not till spring did she know exactly which plants she had. For now, she cares for these rare treasures but knows that she, too, must look for an heir.

It’s snowing here in the hills of Dunedin as I write this column – welcome snow for cool-climate gardeners.