There are some forty-odd species of trillium, dependant upon your position as a lumper or spliter. Add various forms, hybrids, named cultivars to your lust-list and the possibilities stretch into a life time of collecting.
There is a grandiflorum that opens pink and remains pink as well as forms that open white and age to a wonderful deep brick-red. Double and semi-double forms of grandiflorum exist, along with prices as breathtaking as their beauty. Try and locate a good form of yellow-blooming recurvatum. Perhaps Mr. Case would share a piece of his yellow blooming sulcatum. You may be satisfied with a clone of undulatum that would not only live for you, but bloom reliably. As with most collectors, I want them all; preferably planted in drifts. But, if I could have only one, which would it be? I would immediately plead for at least two, but if I could grow only one trillium in my garden it would be the species pusillum.
I have been growing the small or dwarf trillium for about five years. While this species may be only six inches or so in height, it makes up for its lack of stature in exquisite detail. Newly emerging foliage has very dark, almost black-green, leaves overlaid with wine to purple and a fresh waxed appearance. Eventually the leaves will loose the luster, and shift to bright green. Individual leaves will be about 1 ½ inch wide by 3 inches in length.
I am enjoying fully opened blooms by the first week of March. Each bloom will have three white petals undulate along the margins. Each bloom has its own display stand formed from a pedicel that adds one inch or so in additional overall height. Two weeks later the white petals will have aged to rose or lavender-purple. The aging process takes about two more weeks, so each bloom lasts for well over a month.
While I am speaking of T. pusillum in general here, it should be noted that this species is actually a complex 8 forms. These are for another article at another time. My description and this article speak of the beauty of T. pusillum ozarkanum according to Don Jacobs.
Quite a few species of trillium have been growing in my garden for over ten years. Some of the species still produce only one stem and bloom each season. Trillium pusillum, however, is a powerhouse at producing offsets. After only five years in my garden a single rhizome has grown to produce a tight colony of fifteen stems. I did not take a count on number of blooming stems versus non-blooming, but the show was sufficient enough that I did not take note of the slackers. I keep promising myself I will dig up the rhizome and break it into individual starts, replanting for a really great drift in another four or five years, but I can not bring myself to make those divisions.
When transplanting my start of pusillum to my garden I gave it a site with more light than I give my other species of trillium since all pusillum source locations are well south of me enjoying more heat in summer. It is in a raised bed of heavy clay improved with composed hardwood bark. Soil pH is neutral. Maintenance and care consists of a mulch of chopped leaves each November.
Being the beauty of my eye pusillum receives a special spot just after entering the garden gate. In a raised bed to be closer to the eye, it is where one pauses just before taking another step upward. The clump is framed by an old cedar stump that is now all gray and silver. Companions are helleborus and primula. Each year you can find me in the garden taking slides of my favorite trillium since it has added to its previous beauty.