A treasure. I love them and am trying for them en masse. So nit many spare... yet.
Trout Lilies or dog tooth violets for their dog's-canine-shaped bulbs. Dormant in early summer so they aren't in the way, but they add another dimension under summer flowering shrubs with their joyful and exuberant late September display. Hot pink flowers, although relatively fleeting, are wonderful. The leaves are beautifully mottled when young and so add much to a spring bulb garden. These erythroniums are the best choice for wetter soils in summer, the others are more inclined to rot. They still like good drainage though. This is easily provided by lots of humus and organic matter.
When compared to E. dens-canis, E. revolutum is easier to grow and naturalise, it has yellow pollen (not purple). The very best and simply incredible display is in the Dandenongs, Victoria, at the home of Jane Tonkin. They get themselves deep in the soil there. It has inspired me to grow all my seed every year to have as many as I can in an area adjacent to my bulb meadow. They bulk up so well they easy to natuarlise. Despite what is said, I can dig them up when they appear and move them about, splitting clumps. A white form: White beauty is equally good at bulking.But is not able to be grown from seed and so I do not have any available.
From Ian Young's bulb log; "If your garden is likely to have hot sunshine when the Erythronium are in growth then some shade from the mid-day sun would be desirable to prevent the ones particularly with broad leaves from being scorched. Their relatively soft leaf structure indicates to us that they need some shelter from strong winds which at their worst can shred and snap the leaves and flowering stem.
and...
"The one thing that may prevent you from growing Erythronium well is if your garden gets very hot and dry in summer – Erythroniums can survive quite long dry periods during the summer, provided they are in the ground, but it seems that they suffer if the ground around them heats up too much – this is part of the explanation why their bulbs grow so deeply into the ground. I have been asked how deep you should plant bulbs. There is no definitive answer it depends on your garden soil and weather because what the bulbs are seeking is not simply a definable depth of soil above them but the best environment, being a combination of moisture and temperature, they can tolerate."
Ian recommends planting them with 7cm of soil on top of the bulb, at least for all the western US coast species.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nK7pqNhFilQ
Closeup: Francine Riez, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
