Outdoor Stuff

The sky got a little dramatic on me yesterday. Through the wonders of photo editing, I can show you this west-to-east panorama, gray and threatening on the one side and blue and cheerful on the other.

The first I knew of this, I heard what I thought was a gravel truck rumbling down the road. But the rumble went on and on and on. I turned around from where I had been weeding out seedling maple trees and saw the storm coming rapidly off the lake.

("The lake" is Lake Michigan.)

By the time I had gone into the house, gotten the camera, and walked down the driveway to take a picture unimpeded by trees, the sun was already gone. But it was still bright enough to take another wildflower picture.

These odd-looking flowers in front of the regular trilliums are the toadshade or wake-robin, Trillium sessile. Wikipedia says the red flowers are foul-smelling, but I admit I never thought to smell them.

Last I knew, they were listed as "threatened" in Michigan, and these were indeed threatened:

They were on some property where a house was being torn down and a gravel pit started!

So my mother got permission to go in and take any plants and trees she wanted. We dug these and a lot of other things out and moved them ahead of bulldozers.

Wake-robins are said to be difficult to move. My theory as a horticulture major is that they are very sensitive to changes in their soil, sunlight, and the soil microlife. Luckily, these seem to have thrived in this shady spot.

What I notice about trilliums in general is that they love shady hillsides. I don't know if it's the thick layer of leaves and moist fertile soil, or the extra shading these get from the north-facing hillside, but when I moved some of my regular T. grandiflorum trilliums here, they really took off.

And now I better get offline, because this morning's sky is starting to look just like yesterday's!