Ep. 205 Spring Ephemerals: Discovering Hidden Woodland Treasures | #GoodGrowing - Good Growing

Episode Transcript
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Chris (00:06):
Welcome to the Good Growing podcast. I am Chris
Enroth, horticulture educator atthe University of Illinois
Extension coming at you from MacOmb, Illinois, and we have got a
great show for you today. Springephemerals, the things that
kinda pop up before everythingelse starts to pop, you know,
before the trees leaf out, weget all of our normal perennials
and shrubs going. These thingsshow up early in the landscape.

(00:29):
And you know I'm not doing thisby myself.
I am joined as always everysingle week by horticulture
educator Ken Johnson inJacksonville. Hey, Ken.

Ken (00:36):
Hello, Chris. So they're they're starting to pop up here
in in Jacksonville in our yards.So I think I think it's safe to
say spring is here.

Chris (00:46):
I am in agreement with you. Yes. There's been a little
bit of of course, I think it'sthe wild, wacky spring roller
coaster that we have becomeaccustomed to here in Western
Illinois where we have I thinkwe've had almost a near 80
degree day a few times now inMarch and maybe February. It's
hard to keep track anymore.Times acts funny when you get

(01:09):
over a certain age, doesn't it,Ken?

Ken (01:13):
Yes. And I think COVID has forever changed my perception of
time.

Chris (01:18):
Yes. Yes. I agree. So I I have had things in microclimates
that have popped way superearly. You know, things close to
the house, maybe things thathave a really good southern
exposure in my yard.
But then some of the otherthings are a little farther away
from the house or maybe theystill have, like, lot of mulch
and leaves and things on top ofthem. They have not started to

(01:42):
emerge yet. And before the showstarted, I was we were looking
at pictures and such, and I waslike, oh, man. Some of these
plants were blooming together,you know, a few springs ago. And
now one's doing its thing andthe other is still not showing
up.

Ken (01:57):
Yeah. I'm trying to think. I need to start keeping, like,
notes of one thing's bloom. SoI'm trying to think back to last
year if things are on readingstuff last stuff said last year
was much earlier than normal,but and I guess maybe this year
we're a little early too becauseI don't seem too much different

(02:17):
from from last year.

Chris (02:20):
I I remember so last year was cicada year, the big cicada
year, and we were, like, almosttwo weeks ahead of schedule when
it comes to some of that, soiltemperatures and some of that
phenology things that do tend tooccur. Not maybe not quite two
weeks, but we were, you know,we're pushing that mark last

(02:41):
year because we were allwatching the soil temperatures
waiting for those cicadas to popup.

Ken (02:46):
That's why don't remember. All I was thinking about was
cicadas.

Chris (02:49):
That's right. You're like, I'm hungry. I need some
cicadas. Well, today, Ken, thetopic is spring ephemerals, and
it would probably be a greatidea for us to define what
exactly is a spring ephemeral.So what do you think they are,
Ken?
Tell me. Can you learn mesomething here?

Ken (03:10):
So I think, you know, at least how I think of them, and
I'm hoping this is accurate. Youknow, the our flowering plants
are coming up early in the year.You know, like you said in the
intro, typically are some of ourfirst blooming plants. But then
they're they're up, they flower,they set their seed, then
they're dying out or dying back,going dormant. A lot of times

(03:34):
right when the trees arestarting to leaf out because a
lot of these are going be in themore forested settings.
So once that canopy closes up,not as much sun's getting to the
ground, those plants are donefor, until the next spring.
Mhmm.

Chris (03:48):
I the way I like to think about it is it's sort of how the
outdoor world wakes up from itsspring or sorry, its winter
dormancy. You know, it sort ofstarts from the ground up and,
you know, all of the life andthe everything starts just
pushing out of the soil from theroots into the plants
themselves, pushing up, and yousee this kind of this emergence

(04:10):
from the ground up, and thenit's winds up in the canopies of
the trees. And this just how theenergy cycles through the
natural world. Yes. The goodhippie dippie stuff.

Ken (04:22):
So that's much more poetic than mine.

Chris (04:28):
Well, you know, I've been sitting there just looking
outside trying trying to writemy poetry though. There you go.

Ken (04:34):
Yeah. Nice nice haiku.

Chris (04:36):
Oh, man. I can't do haikus. I don't understand
haikus. I've never committed thethe necessary, like, sentence
rules for haikus. So maybe Ijust made haiku.
I don't know.

Ken (04:49):
Was it five seven five or something like that?

Chris (04:52):
Yeah. Something like that.

Ken (04:53):
A long time ago.

Chris (04:54):
I don't

Ken (04:54):
need to

Chris (04:55):
know it, so I don't know it.

Ken (04:56):
English was not my strong subject in school.

Chris (04:59):
Would you surprise your high school English teacher if
she knew that or he or she knewthat you were writing for a on a
regular basis for a living? Verymuch so. Me too. Alright. Well,
so they they they start out inthe spring.
They gotta get their work donebefore the trees leaf out. I

(05:22):
guess what would be a good spotto go find them? If you're gonna
go somewhere to look for them,where would we go find spring
ephemerals?

Ken (05:32):
I would say probably you're looking at more forested, like a
forest reserve, forested areas,provided they are not overrun
with honeysuckle or invasivespecies like that, because those
are gonna choke everything outtypically. So you're probably
looking at a little more of ahigh high high quality, forest
setting where you don't have alot of invasive understory

(05:56):
plants that are going to chokethings out.

Chris (05:58):
Mhmm. Yeah. And it seems like reading the different plant
descriptions that we're going totalk about here in a little bit,
a lot of them suggest kind ofthat need for some rich organic
type soils, just a lot oforganic material in those soils.

(06:18):
Yeah. So something you mightfind in a forested setting with
a lot of leaf litter.

Ken (06:23):
And I would say some of these you know, know here in
Jacksonville, some of the parksin town have some of these
spring ephemerals. So, I mean,they've got trees, but they're
not definitely not forested. Sothey're some of these will you
can incorporate into tolandscapes as well too.

Chris (06:40):
Definitely. Yeah. And I did wonder, you know, we we we
focus and I think we're probablygonna just pretty much focus on
woodland ephemerals. Are prairieephemerals out there. I I tried
to do a little bit of research.
The only one I could come upwith was the shooting star,
which can be found in prairiesin early spring. I I did wonder,

(07:01):
though, if if plants likeprairie smoke. You know? It's a
very early plant to show up onin in the prairie. I was, like,
trying to figure out, doing somereading.
Is this considered ortechnically classified as a
spring ephemeral? It looks likeit is not, but there are a few
places that say, yes. It is. SoI suppose, you know, some of

(07:23):
those very early emerging plantsin the spring, they they are
just classified as simplyperennials. But but we are
talking about perennials here.
Right, Ken? They they areperennials.

Ken (07:35):
Yeah. Yeah. They're just just not they're not doing much
above ground most of the yearcompared to what we typically
think of as a perennial that'sgoing be out for you know, our
herbaceous perennials are goingbe up above the ground for
months, you know, majority ofthe growing season, whereas
these are typically early in thegrowing season and then gone

(07:56):
till next year. Yeah. They'restill they're still there just
hanging out.

Chris (08:01):
True. True. True. They're they're just leaving the party
early because, you know, allthese other kids are showing up
and they don't wanna hang outwith all this other competition.
In my research, Ken, I also didsee that there's sort of this
debate about is a spring bulbconsidered a spring ephemeral?

(08:25):
And I think they pretty muchare. Now there are some
differences, but but here's asimilarity. Interesting that a
lot of our spring bulbs, withthe exception of daffodil, and
our spring ephemerals, they cancommonly be browsed on by other
mammals, things like deer. Thisis something that you might

(08:47):
encounter because it's one ofthe first food sources to arise
in the springtime. So a lot ofour ephemerals and a lot of our
bulbs or spring, ephemerals andbulbs are favored by mammals.
But kind of the the biggestdifference though is that our
femerals, as we've described,that foliage dies back a bit

(09:07):
faster than, say, a bulb mightdo that. A daffodil or tulip
foliage might last a little bitlonger, push a little bit
farther into that summer months.But, of course, we have
exceptions to all of theserules. You know, there are some
spring ephemerals that havefoliage that push well into
maybe the middle of summer, andand they will be around a little

(09:29):
bit longer than others. There'salso the just kind of the basics
or the definition of these twotypes of plants is that spring
ephemerals can have rootsystems.
They can have other storageorgans like tubers. They can
have bulbs. They this includesbulbs. Spring bulbs are just

(09:49):
bulbs. Usually, it's what wewould say you go buy these or
order these from a store or anonline source, and then they
will send these to you to plantin the fall as a dormant bulb,
and you can do that.
And then finally, kinda whereI've landed here in terms of,

(10:14):
you know, what kind of carethese two different types of
plants require is that springephemerals really don't like
being taken care of. They don'twanna be watered except for
maybe after you've planted them,and then they really don't need
any type of fertilizer. Springbulbs on the other hand, they
might benefit from water duringa dry spring and also an

(10:34):
application of fertilizer afterthey've done flowering. So, you
know, are spring bulbs springephemerals? I guess I would vote
yes.
This they're probably morecommercial and non native. And
pretty much what we're gonnatalk about today later on is
gonna be native. What are yourthoughts, Ken?

Ken (10:54):
Yeah. That's think a lot of people wanna think spring
ephemeral, they just thinknative plants. There would still
be some non like, we were lookat their pictures. There's non
natives that would be kind offit that same description that
we're giving our native, springephemerals. And I know going
back to the the deer browsing, Ido think, you know, in some

(11:14):
areas, especially Eastern USsince deer populations have
really exploded, you know, withthem coming in and feeding on
plants.
Yeah. I think in some locationsthat could, I guess, endanger
the survival of those plantsbecause it's the only thing
that's green. They come in, theymow them off. Those plants
aren't flowering, they're notreproducing and stuff. So I

(11:38):
don't know what the answer is tothat except but but it's just
something to, I guess, ponder,think about, keep in the back of
your mind.

Chris (11:47):
Yes. We can write some poetry about this later. Yes.
Well, Ken, I guess to makesomething a spring ephemeral
spring is sort of a broad termanymore. Though I don't know.
When does spring really start?We have meteorological spring.
We have the calendar spring.When would we see spring

(12:10):
ephemerals begin to show up inthe landscape typically in
Illinois?

Ken (12:16):
I think for the most part, we're we're looking at March a
lot of times. You know, somelike skunk cabbage could be
earlier. I think a lot of themare that March, April, into
early May time frame. I thinkwhen I think of them, it's it's
typically that March, April timeframe. I think it's gonna be a
majority of them, but have somemoney that are into that as

(12:36):
well.
Yeah. So

Chris (12:40):
and and then, know, like, growing conditions. We talked
about, you know, we see or finda lot of these growing in
forest. Now you had described,like, park districts in your
area or parks in your area. Theyhave some of these ephemerals.
So what about in, a homelandscape where, you know, if I
wanted to plant some of theseephemerals, can we do this, or

(13:02):
do we do we need a forest in ourbackyard?

Ken (13:06):
No. You don't need a forest. So I I can say in our
yard, our back fence line,there's some trees in there. So
it's it's gets shade during thesummer and stuff. That's where
we've planted some bluebells.
We've done Trillium, Jack in thePulpit, Bloodroot, a lot of
these spring ephemerals. It'sprobably a little bit drier back
there than they really like. Sosome of them have struggled.

(13:28):
Maybe even a few of them havedisappeared. I'll have to see if
they come up this year.
We have that that nice organic,good amount of organic matter in
the soils, that dark soil, somegood moisture retention. You
don't want it flooded or reallysoggy. So it's going to drain
well, still going to retain someof that moisture for plants. And
it's something like springbeauty, and we'll talk about

(13:51):
that later, that People havethat growing in their lawns.
It's not necessarily shaded atall either.
So, you know, it can depend onthe plants. Some of them may
want a little more that forestedsetting, but others can do just
fine in a quote unquote typicallawn.

Chris (14:08):
Right. So there is hope for my yard, that I can get some
of these in the ground, andhopefully, that will thrive. Are
there any we talk aboutdeciduous trees. I do get this
question actually, in the pastabout somebody wants to plant
something underneath their pinetree or their spruce tree.

(14:31):
Should we be planting springephemerals underneath our
evergreens?

Ken (14:37):
Probably not. So, you know, if you if you have your
evergreens like they normallywanna grow, you're gonna have
branches down to the ground,basically. And even if you're
aluminum up, that's still gonnabe some pretty, usually gonna be
pretty dry shade under there.There's not so the the needles
are gonna intercept water. Theplants, the trees themselves are
gonna take up a lot of water.
So that's usually a lot lotdrier than we would see in a

(15:00):
typical deciduous Mhmm. Under atypical deciduous tree. Yeah.

Chris (15:09):
And there's a lot of places I think online where you
can go to order these differenttypes of spring ephemerals. I
have ordered a few of thembefore. I I had recently I think
two years ago, it's probably mymost recent purchase, I did
order mayapple. And I had achoice between ordering, like,

(15:30):
live plants, but it wasn'treally a live plant, but, like,
you know, living roots or seed.There's, like, seed and things
that you could harvest as well.
I definitely went with theliving plant or the live roots.
And basically, what I wasshipped was this this bundle of
of roots. They were differentplants, and they were all rubber
banded together. I got, like,four or five in total. And I

(15:56):
planted those in, I think Iplanted them in the springtime.
And they emerged, they grew,they emerged, and then they died
back. I lost them. I don't knowwhere I planted them because I
sort of scattered them out. Andand so but I came back the next
year and I found them. So if youdo this, good idea to mark them

(16:19):
wherever you plant them.
That's a great idea because,again, they go away. You might
lose them. But with if I wouldhave opted to do seed, which
would have been cheaper, itwould have taken years and years
and for that plant to becomeestablished, to really start
growing good foliage and thenflowering. And I might not have

(16:42):
even been able to break thatseed dormancy. You know?
Maybe I wouldn't have planted itright or I wouldn't have
stratified it correctly. So I Iopted for the living roots or
plants to to order those. And itis a bit more expensive, but
you're gonna get faster resultsby by doing something like that.

Ken (16:58):
Yeah. That's the one we've done. We've done the the live
plants. And I give you whenwe've gotten our Ziff showing up
in the fall, so these are bareroot dormant plants that we're
planting. So, yeah, it is.
It's a little more expensive,you know, several dollars a
plant as opposed to a packet ofseeds, which is a couple of
dollars. But I will say with theseeds, like for spring beauty.

(17:20):
That's one we've tried plantingin our yard. We've gotten seeds
several times. And I don't thinkanything would have really
taken.
But I don't if for a lot ofthese, you need to plant the
seeds right away becauseespecially, I know for Spring
Beauty specifically becausewe've looked into this. They
don't they don't have a veryterribly long shelf life, so to
speak, once they start dryingout. That viability really drops

(17:44):
quickly. And for spring beautyand I would assume probably for
some the other ones, but not forspring beauty, they need a
double dormancy. So we're usedto, like, you need your cold,
wet stratification, likemilkweed, stuff like that.
The spring beauty need they needa warm moist period and then a
cold moist period. So you haveto have that double dormancy to
break that. So those seedsaren't even germinating. You you

(18:05):
plant them in the spring,they're not going to germinate
again. They're not going togerminate until the following
spring.
Wow. So you've got a kind of ayear's wait there, before they
do that. And then I know those,it can take three, four years
because they're developing bulbsor corms, whatever they are. And
I've read things like trillium,trout woolly, they can take

(18:27):
seven, eight years before theystart blooming. So if you're
going go seeds, be prepared toto wait and be patient.

Chris (18:35):
In my old house, we had, I I guess, the former owner I I
I know their their grandchildwho is a a great gardener,
operates a CSA in our area. Sothis would have been his
grandparents we would havebought the house from, but they
had all kinds of bulbs in thebackyard, in the lawn. And I

(18:56):
swear some of these were springbeauties, but I I don't think I
ever saw them flower. Maybe Ijust hadn't waited long enough.
I tried to avoid mowing or I'dmow very high, but we would
still get crocus.
We would still get all theseother spring bulbs and spring,
you know, ephemerals, bloomerspopping up in the lawn. And I

(19:17):
could swear, I'm like, you know,I these look like spring
beauties. I would dig some up,and they would have little bulbs
at the bottom of the plant andthe same leaves, foliage that
spring beauty would have, but Inever saw the flowers, which
makes me disappointed to hearthat because I've also seen I
think, Ken, you might have shownme a picture where I've seen,
like, just these blankets ofblooms of from Spring Beauty. So

(19:39):
I yeah. It's been done, just notin my yard.

Ken (19:44):
Yeah. So here in in Jacksonville, out of Duncan
Park, part of that park is I'veI've noticed I haven't driven by
the part where most of them areat, but along the curb in one
area there, there's blooming.But there's a whole section of
that park. There's nothing butspring beauties in the spring.
It's so we can pop up a picture,but, you know, nice white pink

(20:06):
flowers.
Yeah. It's it's pretty prettyimpressive. If you're ever in
Jacksonville, it's done byDuncan Park this time of year.
It's it's pretty cool.

Chris (20:16):
It's like walking on snow.

Ken (20:18):
Yeah. And then well, since we're on the the subject of
seeds, think we had this laterin our outline, but a lot of
these plants when they'reproducing seeds, they're they're
gonna be distributed by ants. Sothey have a structure called an
elastosome on there, which isjust like a fleshy structure.
It's just full of lipids, fullof fats. So that the ants will
take these, will take them backto their nest.

(20:39):
They feed on that those fats,and then they'll discard those
seeds in their trash pile or orsomewhere in their nest. And
that's that's one way theseplants can be distributed is by
ants. So, you know, if you areplanting your own plants, you
know, they can be spread byants. Know there's some research

(21:01):
in the Carolinas that yellowjackets can be important for
Trillium. Dispersal, they'llfeed on the elastosomes,
Trillium, and help spread thoseas well.
And I think it was things likespring beauty, they can eject
their seeds on their own to acouple feet, but then they will
also be spread by ants. So Iknow Spring Beauty is one,

(21:23):
Bloodroot, trout lily,Dutchman's breeches, some
examples of those are thoseelastosomes and are spread by
ants.

Chris (21:32):
Well, that's fascinating. So they are working hard in that
leaf litter early in the year,moving some seed around. I could
see them, yeah, taking them totheir ant burrows or dens,
bringing them inside. Oh, look.You've just planted a seed.
Way to go, ants. So pretty neat.

Ken (21:51):
So, yes, thank an ant for all your your spring ephemerals
moving around.

Chris (21:58):
Excellent. And interestingly, when it comes to
mayapple, the box turtle isconsidered one of the primary
seed dispersers for mayapple.It's it just puts that fruit
right within reach of thatlittle turtle running around the
forest.

Ken (22:17):
Mhmm. Get some box turtles. That's right.

Chris (22:22):
Yes. Well, we it sounds like we are diving into the
details of these plants, Ken.Maybe we should dive into the
details of specific plants. Sofirst on our list, you talked
about you might be interested ingrowing this particular one,
skunk cabbage. You know, it itcan emerge in February.
It can start stinking things up.Why why are these particular

(22:45):
plants an allure to you? Is itan allure to a particular type
of insect that you're when yousee more of?

Ken (22:53):
Why not? So yeah. So skunk cabbage, you know, as their name
implies, they don't smellparticularly good, so they're
drawn in flies and stuff likethat to do their pollination. So
you see let's see if we can finda picture because I don't think
either one of those grow I'veI've looked like I have not
found anywhere that actuallysells skunk cabbage because I
don't think many people actuallywant to grow it. But it's kind

(23:18):
of like kind of a roundish,almost cabbage like looking
flower, so to speak.
I think it looks kind of like ifyou're familiar with pitcher
plants, kind of like the top ofa pitcher plant. And that's the
outside. The flowers areactually inside of there. So
it's drawn in flies. And thenone of the cool things with,

(23:38):
that I think of was skunkcabbage is that they can
generate their own heat.
So you can have snow on theground and these things can
generate enough heat to melt thesnow around them and then emerge
with their flowers and So Ithink that's that's the big draw
to me is, is the not that we getthat much snow anymore or I'll
never be able to see it. But Ithink they do think they need a

(24:00):
little more, a little more onthe moist end of things, which I
probably don't have in my yard.So even if I could find a
source, I'm not sure howsuccessful I would be.

Chris (24:11):
I I'd be game for growing some skunk cabbage in the
backyard. If if not just for thethe enjoyment of going out and
seeing these little you know, ifit does snow in February ever
again, that there's these littlepockets of bare ground growing
in amongst the trees in thebackyard where there's this
smelly cabbage, a skunk cabbagewith flies just circling around

(24:34):
there. Oh, yes. That would begreat.

Ken (24:39):
Probably a reason nobody comes to my house.

Chris (24:42):
Ken's gonna make us smell a skunk cabbage again. Oh my.
Well, this next one, I I reallylike this next one. It is
something that I think I'veencountered. It's Dutchman's
breaches.
And the reason why I I I thinkI've encountered it is I have to
confirm if whether I have beenseeing Dutchman's breeches or

(25:05):
have I been seeing squirrelcorn. And these are two very
similar looking plants.Dutchman's breeches though, the
flower is a white flower and itit's sort of like kind of like a
kinda looks like a Dutchman'sbillowy pants, know,
pantaloonies or you know, theythey look like these billowy

(25:28):
pants, white pants. And it'ssort of like a a heart shaped if
the the lobes, the top lobes ofthat heart were, you know, much
taller. And then it comestogether at the bottom, and it
opens up with these kind ofyellowish I guess, what oh, I
don't know what we call those.

(25:48):
Would those be the actual petalsof the flower there? These
yellowish petal like structuresthere at the base of this plant
of these pantalones,pantaloonies, or pantalones. And
and so that that is the theflower, the structure of the
plant itself. Now squirrel cornlooks just like that flower,
except I think squirrel corn,it's more more heart shaped. I

(26:14):
think the tops are a bit morerounded to look more heart
shaped, so it's a bit more of astout flower, whereas Dutchman's
Breeches are maybe a little bitmore elongated.
And I know I have pictures ofthis somewhere. I just have to
confirm whether it wasDutchman's Breeches or Squirrel
Corn. But hopefully, we'll havefound some pictures. We'll be
popping those up here all overthe place right now comparing

(26:36):
and contrasting the two.

Ken (26:38):
Yeah. I think the pictures I have are Dutchman's breeches,
and I think it's one of those ifyou if you squint, they kinda
look like bleeding hearts, justpink or white instead of pink. I
mean, there are white bleedinghearts too. But I think if if
you wanted to go kind of anative alternative, even though
they're blooming differenttimes, but they have that
similar look. I think the theleaves are don't know.

(27:02):
Lacey is not the right term, buta little finer textured leaves
and stuff on Dutchman'sBreeches. And there's some
bleeding hearts that havesimilar leaves to that too.
Mhmm. Yeah.

Chris (27:12):
It is like a miniature bleeding heart almost. Yeah. And
where I encounter these everyyear and I think every year, I
go and I look up, you know, whatexactly I'm dealing with, and
I'll be like, oh, it's squirrelcorn. I think it is squirrel
corn. But it is covering thisthis this bank behind my

(27:33):
parents' house in the woods, andit's just just awash with this
particular plant.
It's a it's an entire groundcover in the springtime. And
it's absolutely lovely. I Iwould love to have something
like that in my backyard, but II will try to figure out if it
is indeed squirrel corn as Ithink it is or is it Dutchman's

(27:55):
breeches.

Ken (27:56):
So the next flower on our list, Jack in the pulpus. I know
this is the one we've we've gotin our backyard. And I know I've
seen the flowers, but I don'tknow if I've ever taken pictures
of them because usually I don'thave my phone or camera with me.
Mhmm. And I don't think aboutever going back.
But these have, so they send outa flower was it a spade? Spadex

(28:20):
is in the middle. So it's acircular or columnar spathe with
a little, kind of a little topon it. Again, familiar with
pitcher plants, squint, lookspitcher plant y ish. And you got
your little spade x in themiddle, that's where the flowers
are at.
And these are, are kind of cool.They look cool too. But with the

(28:43):
pollination with these, you haveseparate male and female flowers
for these. And the flowerscannot give off a fungal scent.
So fungus gnats, the bane of anyseed starter's existence, can be
important pollinators for thesebecause they're attracted to
that fungal smell.
So they'll go in, you know,thinking this is somewhere they
can lay their eggs. Eventuallythey'll realize it's not, but

(29:05):
they have a hard time escapingbecause the sides of the flower,
spathe or earth kind ofslippery. They have that lid
over it, so it makes it kind ofhard to fly out. So in the male
flowers, when they're trying toescape, they're getting covered
in pollen and there's a smallhole at the base of the flower
that the flies can climb out of.And they can go out and and

(29:29):
check out other, flowers andstuff.
When they land on a femaleplant, you know, if they're
covered in pollen, again,they're searching around,
they're transferring all thatpollen, but the females don't
have that little escape hole. Soonce they get in there,
typically they're going to die.So they kind of have this
unique, trap like funnel wherethe males you can escape, so you

(29:49):
can escape with the pollen.Females you get in, game over.
Usually, don't make it out.
But while you're trying toescape, you're transferring
pollen.

Chris (29:59):
A femme fatale. My goodness. I I've encountered a
lot of Jack in the pulpit,again, in the woods behind my
parents' house. But, of course,yeah, I've never pulled the
camera out to take a picture ofit. They are really neat.
They're it it's probably one ofthe more uniquely shaped plants

(30:21):
that you will encounter in thewoods back there.

Ken (30:25):
And then they will you know, the female flowers when
they're they get pollinated,they'll produce these green
berries that will turn red inthe fall. So this is one that
sticks around a little bitlonger, that exception to the
rule of disappearing ratherquickly. Then birds will feed on
those on those berries. And andthe actual leaves of these

(30:47):
because they got three leaflets.I think they're actually are
they all three separate leaves?

Chris (30:52):
One to two leaves originated from the base of the
stem, which are then dividedinto three almost equal
leaflets.

Ken (31:00):
Alright. So the leaflets are in threes. And so like you
mentioned, trilliums also haveleaves three leaves. But from
what I've read, and I think I'llhave to go back and check my
pictures now to see which ones Ihave, there's a jack in the
pulpit. Those leaves, leafletsare more of a t shape.
So you have two that are moreacross and then one pointing 90

(31:25):
to 90 ish degrees from them.Whereas trilliums, those three
leaves are more are evenlyspaced. So if you see three
leaves, that's one way you couldpotentially determine if you've
got a trillium or a jack in thepulpit if you don't see the
flowers.

Chris (31:41):
Now I need I got a lot of these plants that I need to put
in my backyard. So I butTrillium are one of those.
There's so many differentspecies of Trillium also. I
don't think we have it on ourlist today, but it's definitely
a a noteworthy mention to throwout there. The Trillium, it's
probably its own podcast becausethere's so many different types

(32:03):
of them out there.

Ken (32:05):
There's there's white flowers and purple flowers. I
know and I've got pictures ofone that's got mottled leaves
and and purplish flowers. So

Chris (32:14):
You just need a Trillium expert.

Ken (32:16):
Emily did an article on them. She can be our expert.

Chris (32:19):
We'll bring her back on here and talk Trilliums. Well,
maybe one of my favorite is notmy not it's not the favorite. I
it's coming up. But one of myfavorite spring ephemerals out
there is Virginia bluebells. Ihave those in my yard.
It is something that I lookforward to every single year.

(32:44):
Really starting about now, I Iwas just out in my backyard this
morning, and I have not seenthem poking their heads out of
the ground yet, which is this isthe strange thing because in my
photos I'm looking at, I see thethe the daffodils, which are in
full bloom right by my house.And in these pictures, I'm

(33:04):
pretty sure I've got daffodilsblooming, and I've got the
Virginia bluebells, the flowersstart you know, the buds
starting to push up out of theground. So there's, like, at
least some green coming up. Ithink so far, it's still
nothing.
So hopefully, they're stillthere doing their thing. But
with our Virginia bluebells,they really they started in one

(33:26):
spot off the back of our deck,and then they've sort of moved a
little bit. They go where theywant to. And I've seen a few
Virginia bluebells pop up inanother part of the yard. So
what happens is they they sendup their flowers.
Usually the stem of these bluishflowers that will open up. Kind

(33:49):
of the tips of the flower bedsare almost purplish, and then
they open up to reveal that bluecolor. And then the leaves will
then follow after that. Butevery so often, I think people
say they encounter like a whiteVirginia blue bell flowering
flower. So I haven't seen thatyet.
It might have always been blue,but I'm keeping my eye out for

(34:10):
any potential white flowers outthere. And I pretty sure I
routinely, every single year,see some type of of an insect
pollinator foraging on theseflowers. Very often, it's like a
bumblebee and sometimes muchsmaller bees or or smaller

(34:31):
insects. But almost routinely,I'm I can go out there while
that plant is flowering and seea bee on it.

Ken (34:38):
Yeah. I think of the the ones in our backyard, they've
started pushing up some of theleaves and stuff. I didn't it's
been a few days since I looked.I didn't see any of the buds. So
usually, the buds will start offkind of pink and then and then
color up.
Yeah. I have to go back andcheck. But I think bluebells is
one that I think you see alittle more widely and not

(34:59):
necessarily in in forestedareas. I think usually when I do
see them, they're still neartrees. I think this is one where
or it's pretty easy toincorporate in a a typical
backyard, front yard landscape.

Chris (35:15):
Yeah. Where I have them, they are growing amongst some
hydrangeas. There are some thehostas that will pop up then as
a kind of an edging plant oncethose bluebells begin to fade
out. So once the bluebells fade,the hostas come up and sort of
takes over that space, and thenthe hydrangea just leaf out. And

(35:36):
it's you sort of forget aboutthem for the rest of the year.
And it's it's a nice littlesurprise. Every single spring,
see the bluebells pop up.

Ken (35:46):
Yeah. And some some random information. So the the the
flowers of bluebells, the thecolor is changing because, you
know, they start pink to topurplish to bluish, because the
pH in their cell sap changes. Soas the pH drops, they get more
blue. So sometimes if you'regrowing in more acidic soils,

(36:07):
you have deeper blue flowers.

Chris (36:11):
Well, that's interesting because as we found out last
week, I do have very acidicsoils, so that might be why
they're so blue.

Ken (36:19):
So, yeah, don't don't adjust your pH now.

Chris (36:22):
It's I can't. I won't.

Ken (36:25):
Alright. Think let's see here. Next on our list, got
yellow trout lily. So like Imentioned earlier, this is one
that can take, quite a fewyears, seven, eight years
sometimes in order for them toflower. So, again, probably
buying transplants, live plants,bare root plants, whatever you
wanna call them, is probably theway you want to go with these
unless you're going to wait fora while.

(36:46):
Unless you're willing to waitfor a while, to get flowers off
of those. So these are the onesI've that we have planted in our
yard and we've we've had themblooming are are yellow. So send
out the single, yellow flowerthat we can pop a photo in.
There's also another speciesthat is white produces white
flowers. With these, thefoliage, I can pop a picture in

(37:08):
this.
The the foliage is the leavesare green, but they also they
have this brownish, purplishmodeling on there, which I guess
looks like a trout. So lesstrout lily.

Chris (37:22):
And I think one of the the benefits of trap lily and
and also a lot of our springephemerals that that through our
reading was that because theseplants are popping up earlier
than a lot of the other othersthat are beginning that would
leaf out later is that they canhelp to tie up or hold some of
those nutrients, like nitrogen,that would otherwise be washed

(37:44):
away with our a lot of ourspring rains. And so something
like trout lily, it's growingall of these leaves. It's
flowering, and it is using thosenutrients in the soil. It is
tying up some of thosenutrients. And, yes, it is
gonna, photosynthesize.
It's gonna use that to grow,create it more food for itself.

(38:05):
But then as that plant goesdormant, it also can release
some of that nitrogen, some ofthose nutrients back into the
soil that then a lot of ourplants coming up along further
down the line can then utilize.So that's kind of an added
benefit there. And and when Iwas reading about trout live
lily, it specifically talkedabout how it can hold nutrients

(38:26):
in the spring for plantssprouting later. Another reason
to grow them.
Exactly. You need more roots inthe soil. We need more green up
in the ground up up in the air.We we just we need more plants.
So, Ken, this next one is myfavorite spring ephemeral, and
this is the may apple.

(38:47):
I I love the mayapple. I grewup, you know, roaming through
the woods as a kid with my dogs,and we would I would just, like,
just run through these mayapplepatches in the woods. You know,
I'd be exploring. I would take astick, and sometimes I would

(39:07):
just, like, swat at themayapples and just knock them
down. So I I have to I have toplant a lot of mayapples to make
up for all the ones I I knockeddown with with a stick.
But, yeah, I just absolutelylove this plant. It is a
favorite. I have seen thisgrowing in a lot of residential
yards. Seems like this is apopular ground cover for, you

(39:28):
know, early spring, in manycases. And so it's, this
particular plant, if you're notfamiliar, the may apple, it
it's, shoots up a single stalk,a leaf.
It's kind of like an umbrellashaped leaf, on a single stalk.
And it would be if you thoughtthere were woodland fairies, it

(39:48):
would be where they lived. Theywould live underneath these
plants. It creates this nicelittle little, like, miniature
canopy on the forest floor. Andand so the the leaves are up
photosynthesizing before thedeciduous trees leaf out, and
they will then produce a whiteflower, which is drooping down

(40:08):
towards the it it droops facingthe ground, and it just hangs
underneath.
It gets pollinated. And then,you know, once it's pollinated,
as we described, you know, allmanner of things will come
through and and eat that fruitthat develops all types of
mammals, squirrels, chipmunks,things like that. But primary
seeds disperser is the boxturtle. And I think the foliage,

(40:33):
it lasts a little bit longerthan a lot of other of our
spring ephemerals. Usually, oncethat canopy closes in overhead,
you'll still see those thoseleaves up.
But usually, by the time we gettowards the May, into June, they
begin to just sort of vanish inthe in the woods.

Ken (40:55):
Man, and they spread a little more readily, and this is
relative, than some of the otherspringer feminals too. Right?
Mhmm. I mean, none of themreally spread terribly rapidly,
but this would be more of aspreader than some of the
others.

Chris (41:09):
That that is correct. And that's why when I ordered my
five may apple plants, that'swhy I I could have maybe
clustered them together. But myhope is the reason why I planted
each plant a little bit fartherapart is that they would create
their own colonies and maybegrow eventually into each other
to create a much larger colony.Again, I have to go out in the

(41:34):
woods every year and find wherethose original plants are each
time. And this year, I'm gonnaput a flag by them.
They have survived at least twoyears in the this wooded area
behind my house, and so I'm I'mhopeful they will come up again
this year. You know, there'ssome probably difficulties for

(41:54):
some of these plants. We havebeen encountering stretches of
drier weather, stretches ofdrought in the summer, drought
in the fall. And then was it2023? We had a spring drought,
kind of an unprecedented springdrought.
Now I know they survived 2023.They they shot up in 2024. But

(42:14):
the thing you gotta know gottasort of a guess, like, were they
using the last of theirresources that they had in their
root system? Because I don'twater them. I don't take care of
them.
It has been very dry, at leastin Macomb where I'm at. Our soil
is dry. We didn't get much snowcover this year again, so we'll
see.

Ken (42:35):
Yeah. I think so, yeah, we can go to our next one here. I
think maybe that's why sobloodroot Mhmm. There's another
popular one. This is one weplanted, and I don't think ours
did much last year.
I'm wondering if 23 stressedthem out a little too much. But
with bloodroot, these have thesereally bright white, like pure

(42:56):
white flowers. Like, I don'tknow, they say white flowers,
other things are white flowers,but these are these are white.

Chris (43:05):
Yes.

Ken (43:05):
Yeah. It's very, very bright. I don't even know. I
can't think of another flowerthat would compare as it like
that, like pure of a whiteflower that I can think of. What
with yellow centers on them.
I get lower growing plants. Andwith these, you know, these
rhizomes, if you break those,they have this reddish orangish
sap which gives them the namebloodroot. So Mhmm. And I think

(43:30):
there's another one may stickaround a little bit longer.
Relatively speaking when itcomes to spring and feminals.
But this is yeah. Again, youknow, pick your favorite one
like picking your favorite kid,but I'd say this would be this
would be Up there. Top of thelist for Yes. I think just
because of those the flowers. II can't really think of anything
else that's that's similar tothem.

(43:53):
Mhmm.

Chris (43:54):
I've first time I learned about bloodroot, we were
actually at the one of ourmaster gardener sites up in
Galesburg. It's the CarlSandburg historic site. It's
where Carl Sandburg, the poethey. There's a lot of poetry in
today's show. It's where he Ithink it's where he grew up.
But we have bloodroot growing asa ground cover, and one of the

(44:16):
master gardeners plucked a leafwith the stem attached, handed
it to me, and said, take a lookat the the cut end. And sure
enough, there's this orangishreddish sap oozing out of the
the cut end of that stem. So Ithink I got a picture of that.
I'll throw that up on thescreen.

Ken (44:37):
Yeah. We'll have to have to check and see if ours are coming
up. I when I looked last week, Ididn't assuming I'm remembering
the right place where we plantedthem. No. There is nothing
popping up.

Chris (44:50):
Yeah. I I looked for our Mayapples this last weekend, and
I'm a little worried. We we dohave some some ash trees in the
woods behind the area, and a lotof the top side of the trees
that have been killed by emeraldash borer, a lot of the top side
of these trees have snapped, andwe've got a lot of debris on our
forest floor. I am sort ofdebating whether or not I should

(45:12):
clean that up to to to to givesome more room to some of those
spring ephemerals and some ofour we have also a a very good
colony of elderberry that isalso part of the the woods back
there. So, yeah, I'm trying todebate whether or not I need to
clean some of that up to to letsome of these other plants let

(45:32):
them get room in there.
Because it does seem like whereyou let where where you're
giving a little bit of an inchin your woods, garlic mester
shows up or bush honeysuckle orwe've got barberry, we've got
Norway maple. We've got all ofthese plants that just keep

(45:54):
showing up in these open spotsin the woods, and it's really
hard for spring ephemerals tocompete against these plants.
We've said it before in theshow, but it's just just worth
repeating. The reason why Ithink a lot of people don't know
much about spring ephemerals ornot exposed them as much is
because most of our woods thesedays are full of invasive plants

(46:14):
that have outcompeted a lot ofour spring ephemerals.

Ken (46:18):
Yeah. And then, I mean, if you need to clean it up, lot
times they'll they'll come backYes. Eventually. Mhmm. Just
gotta keep at it.

Chris (46:28):
Yes. The the work never stops. So it's a never ending
thing. People always ask me,well, when do I stop doing this?
Like, you don't stop fightinginvasive species.
You don't stop promoting nativeplants. You know? It's it does
not end. Well, Ken, that bringsus to our last one today, the
spring beauty. We've alreadytalked a little bit about this,

(46:50):
but I the only again, the onlything I know about this is I
think I had it growing in mybackyard at the old house, but
you've seen this one more than Ihave.
Tell us more about the springbeauty.

Ken (47:00):
Yeah. So this is, a smaller plant, you know, six inches
tall. The the leaves looksimilar to grass. They're so
much broader leaved Mhmm.Plants.
So, you know, these do well orwell, I guess they they
incorporate well into lawnsbecause they look somewhat
similar. And if you get a bigpatch of them, you're gonna get
this really stunning, you know,view, like I mentioned in in the

(47:24):
park. White flowers, some ofthem will be, pinkish, to to
dark pink, a lot of stripes onthem. It just kinda depends on
on the individual plants. Andso, you know, there's been some
some research done looking at,the flower colors, so you could
darker pink or crimson flowers.
They found these to be moreattractive to bees, which are

(47:47):
really the main pollinators ofthem. There are some
specialists, I think some fliesthat may specialize on, or bees.
There's some specialistpollinators on, on spring beauty
too. But these darker blooms forwhatever reason are preferred by
the pollinators. Those getpollinated more.
They produce more seeds. Butthe, there's some chemicals that

(48:07):
cause this more pink coloration.But those, the plants that have
all those chemicals are creatingthose darker flowers are also
more attractive to herbivorescompared to the pure white
flowers. So you have kind ofhave that give and take, you
know, you get more seeds, butyour herbivores are feeding on

(48:27):
them more and stuff. So maybe,you know, while they may produce
more seed, more of those plantsare getting eaten.
So they you kinda get thisbalance of white to darker pink
to in between and stuff. Havethe pink lines on on the flowers
and stuff. So it's you know, Ithink they're pretty cool. Like
I mentioned, I've we've triednumerous times to get these

(48:48):
going in our yard. Again, I justkinda sprinkle the seeds out and
I go and look in at where Ithink I put them.
Maybe I'm looking at the wrongspot, but I have not had any
plants blooming yet. And theycan tolerate some mowing, but
when you mow them, you mow theflowers, they're not coming
back. So it's one of thosethings. If you if you've got

(49:09):
them, let them bloom, kinda holdoff as long as you can. And then
you can mow them, then theplants will can tolerate that.
They'll still have leaf matterup. They'll still be able to
photosynthesize and stuff. Iknow here in Jacksonville, it's
it's always kinda sad when theymow. I always think they can
wait a little bit longer, butthat's not my decision to make.

(49:32):
So

Chris (49:33):
Well, it's gotta be awful to see that. The mower comes
down and just there goes all theflowers.

Ken (49:40):
Nice and nice and white and pink one day, and the next day
it's green.

Chris (49:47):
Yeah. Well, they keep coming back. That's a good thing
at least. So they're they'restill there.

Ken (49:54):
Yes. Yeah. They haven't. So, yeah, they can they can
tolerate some mowing as long asyou're not scalping on my
personally, if I were doing it,if it was my urine, I would have
that mower deck as high as youcan make it. Leave as as much of
that foliage behind as you can.

Chris (50:09):
Mhmm.

Ken (50:09):
And probably even wait till I got a letter from the city
saying I gotta mow. Well, if youif you don't wanna go that
route, got a little earlier.

Chris (50:21):
Got a little earlier. Maybe it is worth saying, Ken,
because as you're describingthat, I thought, well, maybe you
could just go out to the parkand dig up a chunk a chunk of
the lawn there. But everyone, itis important when you see these,
it is not the greatest thing togo out and dig these up in the

(50:43):
wild and bring them home to youryard. We do recommend purchasing
these through, like, reputablenursery dealers. And, again,
there are also nurserypropagated plants, and there are
nursery grown plants.
Feel you can ask questions towhomever you're buying these

(51:04):
from. Sometimes nursery grownplants, they are harvested from
the wild, and they simply growthem out a little bit in the
nursery. But then there'snursery propagated plants. They
are propagated. They aresprouted from seed or through
cuttings in the nursery.
They're grown out. But it's it'smore of a responsible way of of
of having these available forsale. So, yes, not a great thing

(51:29):
to go out and just dig them upout of the out of the wild. You
definitely need someone'spermission if that is the route
you're gonna go. I don't know ifthe park district will give you
permission, Ken, to dig up partof their park.
But

Ken (51:40):
Probably not.

Chris (51:42):
They may never know.

Ken (51:44):
And I'd say too, you know, if you're in a natural area and
you and you see these flowers,leave them. And those plants are
only blooming once that year.It's not like they're sending
out a new flush, and they don'tespecially spread all that
rapidly. You know, things liketrillium and trout lily could
take seven or eight years beforethey bloom. So it can be a while

(52:05):
before, you know, these thingsare we're putting out flowers
again.
So avoid the temptation. Justtake pictures.

Chris (52:12):
Yes. This would be a good one to teach like young
children, to to look at and andnot pick. Like like these are
particular plants that we don'treally want to disturb. You
know? Look at them because Iknow it's very tempting for kids
to see a flower and just pick itright away.
This is a good trainingopportunity for your children.

(52:35):
Look. Don't pick.

Ken (52:37):
Teach them how do I need dandelions. Pick those.

Chris (52:40):
Can pick all dandelions that they want.

Ken (52:44):
And I think one thing we we've kinda hinted at, you know,
if if you're gonna be plantingthese in your landscape, they do
disappear. So making sure you'replanting something else with
them to fill those holes. So sayin our yard where we've planted,
our spring ephemerals, plant alot of ferns because those ferns
really don't start coming upuntil most of those have died

(53:08):
back. We've got some sedges andstuff like that as well. So just
keep that in mind that if you'regonna have a big patch of of
bluebells or whatever, you'regonna have a hole if you don't
have something else in there,hostas, annuals.
If you're going put annuals orsomething in there, I would flag

(53:28):
your plants. So if you don'tplant that stuff until after
they die back, you're notpotentially damaging that plant
or disturbing it when you'replanting. Yes.

Chris (53:37):
Good. Very good point. Yeah. And I think it's
interesting, especially with ourbluebells where we have them in
our yard, they seem to grow inand amongst the hostas. It
doesn't seem to bother them.
We have ferns in there as well.And it's bluebells, they don't
care. They'll grow. They'll findtheir space in and amongst the
other plant roots.

Ken (53:59):
Maybe they do get along with each other after all.

Chris (54:02):
Maybe they do. They do. They might beat each other up a
little bit, but they're goodfriends from long ago. Well,
that was a lot of greatinformation about spring
ephemerals. So get out today.
Go check out go on a hike. Takea look at some spring
ephemerals. Don't pick. Leavethem where they are. Take some

(54:24):
pictures.
Share them with others. They areneat plants to go see. Well, the
Good Growing podcast is aproduction of University of
Illinois Extension, edited thisweek by me, Chris Enroth. Ken,
thank you so much for hangingout and sharing what we know
about kind of the best part ofthe growing season. Think it's
just getting it kicked off.

(54:45):
We're so excited for this tohappen. Winter's over. Spring is
here. Can't wait to see theseephemerals.

Ken (54:51):
Yes. Thank you. Time to go out and check out the backyard
again and see what's coming upand start making a list for new
stuff to put back there. Andlet's do this again next week.

Chris (55:03):
Oh, we shall do this again next week. Spring has
sprung as we have said andquestions are coming into
extension offices. We're goingto share some of those questions
that we are getting, but do youhave questions? Feel free to
email us. Our emails are in theshow notes down below.
Well, listeners, thank you fordoing what you do best and that
is listening. Or if you'rewatching us on YouTube watching.

(55:25):
And as always, keep on growing.

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Ep. 205 Spring Ephemerals: Discovering Hidden Woodland Treasures | #GoodGrowing

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Ep. 205 Spring Ephemerals: Discovering Hidden Woodland Treasures | #GoodGrowing