April 2015 – Alice's WanderLand

Trillium are part of the lily order but have their own family. And that is no surprise because, as it happens, there are many different varieties that grow across the globe. I was unfamiliar with it until we acquired the Fawn Hill property. On our little strand of land we have dozens of pink trillium which, officially speaking, are Trillium catesbaei, or Catesby trillium. There are quite a few more this year than I remember from the past two seasons that we have enjoyed this place. Whether that is due to our clearing of overgrowth or perfect growing conditions I don’t know.

As a member of the lily order they grow from rhizomes. This is great news since propagation will take care of itself. In the picture below you can count at least seven in a relatively small patch of land. Most of ours are pink although there are some white and one or two purple varities.

They are cheery beings and welcome on Fawn Hill. ✦

When I was a child growing up in Massachusetts, there seemed no shortage of Lady Slippers; that delicate wild orchid that is at once beautifully dainty and profoundly evocative. They are of the subfamily Cypripedioideae and grace most of the continents. According to Wikipedia:

The subfamily Cypripedioideae is monophyletic and consists of five genera. The Cypripedium genus is found across much of North America, as well as in parts of Europe and Asia. The state flower of Minnesota is the showy lady’s slipper (Cypripedium reginae). The pink lady’s slipper is also the official provincial flower of the Canadian province of Prince Edward Island.

My sister and I recall them differently. She recalls them being in the woods behind her friend’s house and I recall them being in the woods behind our house, the distinction being that we moved to a big house that had acres of woods behind it just before my sister went off to boarding school. I remember ripping them from the ground and bringing them home to my mother. She rarely scolded us but she did suggest, in that way she had, that I simply leave them be. After we moved to Florida, when I was 12-years old I rarely saw a Lady Slipper again. I had heard (incorrectly) that they were endangered. So, you can imagine my delight when I discovered two(!) Lady Slippers on the hillside at Fawn Hill in North Carolina.

SAMSUNG CSC — Lady Slipper (Cypripedium acaule) on the hillside at Fawn Hill.

This will be our third summer at Fawn Hill and every year brings more surprises. In a few days we are having some trees removed, weed trees mainly, opportunists that have grabbed at a chance to thrive, ironically in the absence of care. As we clear away more and more of this over-growth we uncover a plan. The woman who first owned this land and lived here for more than a decade was a gardener and she installed some beautiful plantings. Daffodils and tulips have popped up, peonies seem abundant, and azalea bushes are emerging from what tried, very hard, to become forest. What will surprise us when the weed trees are gone and more light reaches the bank of land behind the house? Stay tuned. ✦

Frequent readers are familiar with my cousin Bunny. She recently turned 95 years old and things are not what we would hope for her. Physically strong she has a form of dementia that blocks her memory of the present time. She will repeatedly ask the same question or make the same observation, like an old phonograph player that gets stuck on the same part of a record. But the Bunny we love is still there, it just takes some creativity to jostle the brain into “forward.”

One modern invention that helps with that process is the iPad. Frequently I will take it with me when I visit and we look at old family photos. This series of pictures shows Bunny and her daughter-in-law, Joanne, “visiting” with Bunny’s great-grandchildren, Winston and Ellery. Bunny seemed to grasp the concept of video-visits with no problem, only the appropriate wonder such technology deserves.

So, on this Easter Sunday, I give you Bunny. Still alive, still loved, and still loving. ❧