virginia bluebells

This is a follow-up to my post last Wednesday about some spring flowers. As you can see, more flowers are blooming.

Red Trillium. This lovely wildflower just popped up next to my studio this year. This is the first time in three decades that we have seen this plant here and have no idea how it got there.

Today I had a surprise. As I was doing some mushroom hunting – right next to the house is the best place actually – I discovered this beautiful red trillium. This is the first time that I’ve ever seen this trillium in this place. Yes, up in the big woods which is half mile away, but never close to the house.

So my question is this, how did the flower get here? Were the roots in the ground for decades? Did some animal move it there? Sometimes it’s easy to see how plants move from one place to another. (I’ll rant about the Russian Olives that the DNR planted over at the lake which is two miles away and which are now establishing themselves here, but that’s a story for another day.)

From one little patch of flowers, these delicate Virginia Bluebells have now established themselves all over. And I plan to move them into the woods very soon. They die back after blooming to totally disappear until next year.

Here are the Virginia bluebells. When we moved here, there was only one small patch in front of the house, over fifty yards away. Now they spring up in the most unusual places. This patch is behind the dog house. However, they’re so beautiful with their pinky turning to sky blue flowers. And they totally disappear after blooming until next year.

Columbine is a beautiful, delicate flower which self-propagates through prolific seed production.

These columbine are very prolific. I planted one plant fifteen years ago. They have now established in many areas. Their seed pods practically explode but I really don’t mind these flowers as they are so pretty and delicate.

These beautiful old-stock lilacs were here when we arrived. They were probably shared from someone else’s garden, as we have since shared them with others. That is how old plants moved.

Finally, this is a beautiful old lilac. I have a few bushes around the yard but have often dug up starts to replant elsewhere. Today, I noticed one that I had my son plant along the road ten years ago is now blooming next to the mailbox. My son has some starts from the same bush at his home.

Not in bloom now is some golden sedum which has popped up in the most unusual places. Or the jungle of forsythia bushes which are now also planted along the road. They’ll get a hard pruning when they finish blooming.

So, how do plants move? Well, obviously humans have some influence, and birds dropping seeds. But otherwise, I’d like to believe that it’s magic, maybe faeries or garden elves who are just having fun with us. Hey, it could be true.