Not usually but it depends a fair bit on the type of trillium and the conditions they're grown in. The big white grandiflorums are the fastest spreaders I think. In my experience they grow best in soil that is a bit moist in spring - but not wet - and then it doesn't seem to matter if it dries out later in the summer after they're dormant. They also seem to prefer lots of leaf litter and organic matter from letting plants die back in the fall and undisturbed soil - i.e. don't cultivate around them if at all possible. And decduous shade of course. When we bought this house in 1999, we discovered the following spring that we had a few small clumps of T. grandiflorum that were being engulfed by pachysandra. We cleared out the pachysandra and planted things like columbine and other herbaceous woodland plants and let all the ash, oak and pine needles stay on the ground and did no spring or fall clean-up in that area. This is what it looked like this past week:
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They will self-sow, but it will take 4-5 years before the seedlings flower. The first year they develop one leaf, the second two and then a few more years until they start flowering. You can also collect seed and sow it.

Thank you both so much..what a beautiful picture!!!!!I love it
I look forward to mine looking like th at
karen:)

Lovely photo. We have trilliums in our woodlot backyard. We have white (grandiflorum), pink (undulatum) and red (erectum). I like your statuary :o)

Barb
s/w Ontario, CANADA

I didn't even know some of them spread from the rhizome until I had my luteum come back with 2 plants a year after I planted it. This spring I have 8 or 10 in three years from those same plants. The same has happened with my erectum which is kind of taking over the small spot I initially gave it, they've also gotten quite a bit taller than I expected. I've never noticed my grandiflorum or sessile spread from the root the same way but I always have lots of seedlings from all four species.

I think Woody_Canada is right, depends on species and location.

Waplummer I read an interesting study that found a direct correlation between trillium height and flowering. Regardless of how old they are if they have a "bad year" or a lot of seeds (cost of reproduction) they are shorter and do not flower the following year.

A lot of rhizomatic ephemerals will be shorter or not flower if they have expended too much energy, or not photosynthesized enough the year before. If you want to increase your amount of trillium quickly, I suggest starting a stock bed. You can dig up the rhizomes right after they start flowering in the spring, take all side shoot rhiz. off, rip off the stem, make a cross cut on the growing bud, cover the incision with charcoal, and replant. THis will cause dormant buds behing the main growing bud to sprout, producing as many as four new growths. Or you can just leave them alone and spread the seed.
The T. grandiflorum forma petalosum (double white Trillium) multiply much more rapidly from rhiz. than any other that I have encountered. The T. erectum forma albaflora is also very vigorous.
T. erectum, T. flexipies, T. simile, and T. vaseyi will all openly hybridize and create wonderful new specimens.
Have fun,
t

Can anyone tell me how to plant some bulbs that I just purchased. I'm not sure how deep to plant or the spacing.

Thanks

What kind of bulbs?

Red Trillium

Here is a link that might be useful: Red Trillium

Couldn't use the link, asked for a password and login. Trilliums can be planted anywhere from 4" to 7" down. Is the rhizome is small I'd lean more to the 4" side. How are the rhizomes? Are they bareroot or in a pot? If so, they are probablly wild collected and they might not live. Hopefully the rhizomes still have the small feeder roots. Spacing is dependent on how close you want them to bloom. They only send up one stalk per growing bud, so more together means more plants.
Aloha
t