I was able to acquire a few pieces of rootstock of white trout lily last year, and put them willy-nilly in the garden without having too many expectations about the outcome. After all, immature plants produce a single leaf and fail to flower – so at best I was foreseeing a lot of dappled leaves for the next few years. Only mature plants bloom. I was happy to see plants emerge that had two leaves. In white trout lily speak this means that those plants will produce a flower. Even without a flower present, the leaves make an attractive ground cover. Plants multiply rapidly by root offshoots and seed, but you should always expect more single leaves than flowers…
If conditions are right (dappled sun in the spring, heavier shade in the summer, moist and rich soils) the plant will spread and colonize an area over the course of several years… It’s a good companion plant to ferns…
White trout lily flower Cummaquid April 21, 2012
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