Erythronium is a woodland plant through and through, and one of the loveliest small things the spring garden has. In April it hangs out nodding flowers with the petals swept right back, like a martagon lily shrunk to the size of a thumb, in pink, purple, white or gold. Under the best of them the leaves are marbled in chocolate and green, as good to look at as the flowers themselves. Most gardeners know it as the dog’s tooth violet, after the shape of its little tuber.
When Does Erythronium Flower
April, and only for a few weeks, which is part of the charm of it. Each stem nods over and turns its petals back on themselves until the flower looks half undone, and a drift of them catching the low spring light through bare branches is a thing worth planting for on its own. On the dog’s tooth violets the foliage is the other half of the show, broad leaves heavily marbled in brown and grey that come up before the flowers and would earn their place without them.
Where Does It Grow Best
In cool, leafy shade, the kind of ground you find on a woodland floor. It wants moisture and a soil full of leaf mould, dappled light beneath deciduous shrubs, and it will never thank you for a hot dry border. If you have no such corner, you are in good company. Our own Paul grows his only in pots, finding nowhere in the garden quite right for them, and a deep pot of leafy compost stood in the shade does the job perfectly well.
How Do You Plant It
The one rule that really matters is speed. Erythronium tubers must never be left to dry out, so unlike almost every other bulb they should go straight into the ground when they reach you, five centimetres down in soil worked over with leaf mould, rather than sit about on a shelf. One word of warning goes with them. Mice and voles are every bit as fond of the tubers as we are of the flowers, so where you have either, a little wire over the spot until growth shows is worth the trouble.
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Will It Naturalise
Slowly, and only where it is truly happy. Left undisturbed in the right cool corner it seeds and thickens into a broad colony over a few years, the marbled leaves carpeting the ground each spring before dying away for a summer rest underground. What it cannot abide is being moved, so choose the place with some care and then leave it completely alone. Patience is the whole secret with this one.
Which Erythronium Should You Choose
Begin with the dog’s tooth violets, all three standing about fifteen centimetres and every one of them carrying those marbled leaves. Purple King is a deep heather purple, Rose Queen a clear rose pink against the darkest foliage of the group, and Snowflake a pure white marked at the base within. Any single one naturalises well in a shady pocket, and the three of them together make a tapestry of leaf as much as of flower.
For height and for gold, turn to the two Americans. Pagoda carries four or five large canary yellow flowers on strong stems at around twenty five centimetres, and it has earned the Award of Garden Merit; revolutum White Beauty is the exquisite one, its swept back white petals and hanging cream anthers ringed with rust at the very centre, an Award winner as well. Both stand taller than the dog’s tooth violets and fairly light up a shady corner.
Plant These With Your Erythronium
Erythronium belongs to the woodland spring, and it keeps that company well. Winter aconites open the season a good month ahead of it, chionodoxa arrives in the same April weeks in a haze of blue, and wood anemones carpet the same cool shade around its feet.
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