Red Trillium Gardens - 59h Gulf of Maine Coastal Plain

Nursery tasks for the day:
- Taking inventory and updating it on my website
- Promoting our appearance at the Lunenburg Artisan's Market on Sunday.

... and more, but those are highest priority.

Not quite the same thing, but my nursery's opening day sale is tomorrow, May 4th. While I usually ask for more traditional forms of payment, I would also accept barter!

We'll have many species: Monarda, Pycnanthemum, asters, goldenrods, wild mint, wild cucumber, and more!

How did I forget to post the final day of #nativeplants #nationalpoetrymonth? This one is "I’uni Kwi Athi? Hiatho." by Roberta Hill Whiteman.

The ground I was born to
wants me to leave.
I’ve searched everywhere to tell you
my eyes are with the hazels.

Read more on ko-fi: ko-fi.com/post/Iuni-Kw...

What's the one in the lower left? I recognize the others, but not that.

a black and white photo of a man with a magnifying glass on his face and the caption i also wonder ALT: a black and white photo of a man with a magnifying glass on his face and the caption i also wonder

It's giving me Lost Skeleton of Cadavra "I sleep now!" vibes 😆

We're in the home stretch with #nativeplants #nationalpoetrymonth! Today we have "Red" by Cheryl Savageau.

"Though acid falls from the clouds
maples have gathered on the hillsides
in every direction See how they celebrate
They are wearing their brightest dresses."

ko-fi.com/post/Red--Ch...

More #nativeplants #nationalpoetrymonth: "The Yellow Violet" by William Cullen Bryant, about Viola pubescens.

"When beechen buds begin to swell,
And woods the blue-bird’s warble know,
The yellow violet’s modest bell
Peeps from the last year’s leaves below."

Read more: ko-fi.com/post/The-Yel...

Foxglove beardtongue (Penstemon digitalis) - quarts at $10 Clustered mountain-mint (Pycnanthemum muticum) - quarts at $10 Sundial lupine (Lupinus perennis) - 1.5 pint - $8 Wild bergamot (Monarda fistulosa) - 1 pint - $6 Partridge pea (Chamaecrista fasciculata) (annual) - 1.5 pint - $7

Our little #nativeplants nursery will be at Fitchburg's Earth Day celebration tomorrow:

April 22 2025, 2pm-5pm
730 Main Street (lot adjacent to city hall)
Fitchburg, MA

See our blog post for more details of what we'll have available! redtrilliumgardens.com/posts/update...

Very cool! I’m in 6a too and ordered some Royalty raspberries this year. Now wondering if I could put them in pots…

Eastern Skunk Cabbage (Symplocarpus foetidus) This is the first flower to bloom, creating heat to push up through ice and snow in late winter with its strikingly unusual alien-like albeit smelly flowers

Just added to the shop: Symplocarpus foetidus, the eastern skunk cabbage. I have a few 1-2 year old seedlings potted up so far (photo of seedlings in the post). If there's enough demand for it, I'll add more, so no worries if it sells out. These rival any hostas and grow in sun/shade #NativePlants

Haven't tried the nematodes, though! I'm curious how targeted they are.

I agree that avoiding overwatering is number 1, though.

Good stuff, but lemme add my own, in order from highest to lowest effectiveness:
- Bt (Mosquito Bits/Dunks)
- A layer of vermiculite or sand on top
- keep a fan going
- yellow sticky traps

Be especially vigilant when you bring plants in that have been outdoors for a while!

Wow! Didn't know you could grow them in pots! How big do they get?

Is there a reason to do it now instead of waiting? I feel like when they're tiny it's so easy for them to fail to re-root, or be lost in the landscape and neglected. But maybe that's just my lack of skill 😅

Almost none of my winter sown stuff has sprouted yet (zone 6a but we had 5" of snow on Sat!), but potting up is such a relatably constant job, isn't it? I've been potting up overwintered stuff and indoor-grown stuff for an Earth Day market next week.

The background photo shows the serrated leaves and hanging white flower clusters of black cherry (Prunus serotina). The foreground text is a quote from the Alison Granucci poem 'Decaedom: A Spell for Wild Cherry (Prunus serotina)' (see post). The base photo is by Famartin - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=131792446

Next up in #nativeplants #nationalpoetrymonth: "Decaedom: A Spell for Wild Cherry (Prunus serotina)", by Alison Granucci.

But Wild Cherry revivaldies!
Bacteria, earthworms, fungiall recylefeast —
All to celebrate impermanence which is
The Kingdom of Decaedom.

ko-fi.com/Post/Decaedo...

Of course, the poem also has Anne picking two Cypripedium arietinum (ram’s head lady’s slipper), an orchid that is rare and protected today 😒 Clearly I do not condone this behavior, but hey, the 1910s were a different time.

(She turns up her nose at C. acaule as too common 😆)

Describe me this way some day:

“Anne has a way with flowers to take the place
Of that she’s lost: she goes down on one knee
And lifts their faces by the chin to hers
And says their names, and leaves them where they are.”

“The Self-Seeker,” Robert Frost

#nativeplants #naturepoetry

Oops, I’ve gotten behind on #nativeplants #nationalpoetrymonth! Today: Trillium grandiflorum, as featured in Mary Oliver’s “Trilliums.”

ko-fi.com/post/Trilliu...

"Marcescence" - Denton Loving - Fagus grandifolia redtrilliumgardens published a post on Ko-fi

Next up on #nativeplants #nationalpoetrymonth: "Marcescence" by Denton Loving, about American beech (Fagus grandifolia).

"A term for how trees like the beech hold
thinly bronzed leaves long into winter,

awaiting that secret signal to wake."

ko-fi.com/post/Marcesc...

The pale white, crook-shaped flowers of Monotropa uniflora (ghost pipes), a parasitic, non-photosynthesizing plant. In the foreground is quote from the poem "Ghost-Flowers" by Mary Thacher Higginson: "No Angelus, except the wild bird's lay,/Awakes these forest nuns; yet, night and day,/Their heads are bent, as if in prayerful mood."

Next in #nativeplants #nationalpoetrymonth: "Ghost-Flowers," by Mary Thacher Higginson, celebrating Monotropa uniflora (ghost pipes).

"No Angelus, except the wild bird's lay,
Awakes these forest nuns; yet night and day
Their heads are bent, as if in prayerful mood."

ko-fi.com/post/Ghost-F...

*sanity, gah. Clearly said sanity is quickly eroding.

I apologize to all my friends who may be posting about beaver scent glands, but I need to mute a certain word for my own certainty.

And corn is in Poaceae, too! (A recurring joke in the RiffTrax community).

Not just *a* turtle, but THE turtle. The platonic ideal of one.

Okay, not the hat-colander. Let's not get too crazy.

Joke's on you; I do this all the time! 😆

"You are not prepared for the hepatica in April. Go back to your non-native coltsfoot."

A cluster of white bell-shaped flowers, identified as mountain laurel (Kalmia latifolia). A quote from the poem "Mountain Laurel" by Kasey Jueds appears in the foreground. "... Even never having seen/mountain laurel in June, try/to hold it close: near dark, a trembling/of tiny lamps, candling the wished-upon/hours..."

#nativeplants #nationalpoetrymonth continues, with "Mountain Laurel" from Kasey Jueds, celebrating Kalmia latifolia.

"Even never having seen/mountain laurel in June, try/to hold it close: near dark, a trembling/of tiny lamps, candling the wished-upon/hours"

More info: ko-fi.com/Post/Mountai...

Geranium maculatum today. #nativeplants 🌱