| Shooting Stars - Dodecatheon |
| Above - Dodecatheon jeffreyi - I bought these beautiful little plants 20 years ago and have kept them in pots all this time. Incredibly intense magenta blooms with white, yellow and black are wonderful to see. They are much smaller plants than our native shooting stars, usually with 3" leaves and 4-7 blooms, but well worth growing. |
| Above all - Dodecatheon meadia - our native shooting stars, one of my absolute must have plants, large green rosettes of leaves, then a upright spike that can have from 5-50 blooms according to size and age of the plant. They usually grow near water on steep banks next to creeks and rivers, as you can see above on the creek behind my house. I transplanted about 10 plants 20 years ago and they have covered the bank and further down the creek, as they are native I hope they colonize all the way to the lake. I found the original plant about 30 years ago. In the picture on the right you can also see the burgundy blooms of Trillium erectum and the white blooms of Trillium grandiflorum, also wild phlox and virginia bluebells. |
| ©Brad Walker, September 7, 2014 |