Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Native Delaware flowers in my very own backyard

The backyard by the creek is very shady due to many trees growing on both sides of the creek. It offers the challenge of gardening in the shade. Mother nature has provided at least two very lovely native plants featured below. One transplanted, one that we found when we got here.

This Wild Bleeding Heart (Dicentra eximia) is a native to the Middle Atlantic states that we got from a friend's garden. We thought they had been trampled to death in the winter when a fallen tree was cleared from the creek, but they are back already and blooming.





This mysterious lily-like flower has bloomed from this crook in the roots of this tree this year and last year. We did not put it there. My wife suspected that it is a native lily (she should know, horticulture major that she is) suggested a lily with a "t" in its name but couldn't identify it further. My investigation on the web (using this excellent wildflower idenifier) reveals that it is most likely a Yellow Trout Lily (Erythronium americanum, NRCS USDA infomation), although many of the images you see of them have mottled leaves and more dramatic flowers. It is pretty enough, and unexpected. I wonder how I can get more of them to grow there.

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