Posted on Jan 23, 2021 1:46 PMWhat are Spring Ephemerals?
As I noted earlier, winter is a good time for planning. We have a snowstorm approaching, so sitting inside to investigate plants I could add to my garden is a good use of my time.
This time, I'm looking at spring ephemerals. These are forbs -- non-grass, herbaceous flowering plants -- that pop-up before trees and shrubs leaf out in the early spring, such as April and May; some in Minnesota might even start blooming in late March. My goal in selecting these plants is to provide something for pollinators that are active in the early spring.
Researching
There are different resources for hunting up information on plants that bloom in the spring.
Garden.org has a plant characteristic search that lets you pick attributes like "Spring ephemeral" or "Hardiness Zone" and get a list of results. However, it doesn't let you select for plants native from a given state, and I want to pick Minnesota natives.
Minnesotawildflowers.info is good for Minnesota-native wildflowers, and has its own advanced search. There you can search for plants found in a given county, or blooming in a given month, and there's an option to select native plants.
There is a paid site, Gardenia.net, which can be very specific about soil types, soil pH, and so on. In some ways, it appears more thorough than garden.org, but I think it doesn't have as many entries. While you can do some things for free, you have to pay if you want to create multiple lists.
By using all these resources, not to mention Google searches and books I have, I could build up a list of possible plants. But I needed to filter the options. For instance, I could eliminate plants that aren't native in my state or county, and I wanted perennials, not annuals. I've also checked with a friend to see what he's suggested.
The Short List
I've used garden.org's list feature to make a list of spring ephemeral plants that interested me. I added some categories and notes. Here's the plants that are included:
- Wood Anemone (Anemone quinquefolia) attracts flies and bees, blooms April to June, likes shade and acidic soil. Grows equally well in wetlands and dry ground.
- Cutleaf Toothwort (Cardamine concatenata) attracts butterflies, blooms April to May, likes partial shade, and is circum-neutral in soil pH. Usually a dry-ground plant.
- Spring Beauty (Claytonia virginica) attracts "various insects," blooms April to June, likes full sun to partial shade, and prefers acidic or neutral soil. Rarely found in wetlands.
- Dutchman's Breeches (Dicentra cucullaria) attracts bumblebees, blooms April and May, likes partial to full shade, and prefers alkaline to neutral soil. Usually in dry soil.
- White Trout-Lily (Erythronium albidum) also attracts "various insects," blooms April and May, likes partial to full shade, and prefers acidic or neutral soil. It is rarely found in wetlands.
- Yellow Trout Lily (Erythronium americanum) attracts bumblebees, blooms April to May, likes full or partial shade, and prefers acidic or neutral soil. It is a dry-ground plant.
- Virginia Bluebells (Mertensia virginica) attracts moths, butterflies, flies, and bees, blooms April through June, likes full or partial shade, is circum-neutral regarding soil pH. It is usually found in wetlands.
Where to Plant
Now that I know the characteristics, I can choose where these should go. Since I have some specific areas for certain kinds of soil, and there are specific lighting conditions in certain parts of the yard, it doesn't take too much effort to work out what could go where.
The alkaline one, Dutchmen's Breeches, will do well in the area where I intend to have other alkaline-soil plants, as long as it gets mostly shade.
The Virginia Bluebells can handle shade and wetter soils, and might do well around the planned rain garden, which will be north of my living room..
The Wood Anemone likes acid soil that's wet, so it might do well under the northern side of the Winterberry Holly bushes. The Spring Beauty will also like acidic soil and more sunlight, so it can be on the south side of the bushes.
The White and Yellow Trout Lily plants would probably do well under the hostas I have in the front yard, as they can bloom before the hostas come out.
Cutleaf Toothwort is a dry-ground plant, circum-neutral, and handles partial shade. Putting it in what will be the planting area west of the living room will work well.
When to Plant
A lot of spring ephemerals can be planted in the fall, so I may not be able to act on this list until late summer this year. But there's a chance that some of these plants might be in some nurseries this spring. Knowing what interests me, though, means I am prepared for what I can acquire.
