
3 minute read
Revisiting Your Plant Palette
By Patrice Peltier

Spring is the perfect time to appreciate one of Kathy Freeland’s recommended plants: Dodecatheon meadia, commonly known as Shooting Star.
In spring, this small, North American native happily grows in a variety of sites with its distinctive flowers. In the wild, look for it in prairies, forest openings, river bluffs, fens and even abandoned fields!
“Shooting star is an appropriate name, as the flowers have been compared to cyclamen,” Freeland wrote. “The stamens come to a sharp point and seem to be shooting ahead, while the petals fall behind like the trails of a comet. The flowers represent every color from white to purple, each having a yellow circle in the middle.” An ephemeral, this plant’s attractive basal rosettes of lance-shaped foliage disappear after the plant flowers.
Shooting stars like moist, rich soil but also require good drainage, according to Freeland. She noted that clumps can be divided in summer or fall. Root cuttings can also be taken at these times. “Plants will develop slowly and take several years to bloom.” Once established, they will flower in late spring for about a month. Flower clusters can include more than 20 flowers! Freeland’s employer, Midwest Groundcovers, didn’t sell Dodecatheon when Kathy wrote about this plant in 1998. The company began carrying it in 2006 and has been selling 3,0004,000 plants a year ever since, according to Shannon McEnerney, product manager.
Trish Beckjord, native plant consultant for Midwest Groundcovers, always recommends adding this beautiful spring native to your garden. “Why do we always think of daffodils instead of Shooting Star…” she wonders. I always carry this image in my mind when I think of this plant. I took it in May 2010 in the Chicago Botanic Garden Native Prairie Garden. What a perfect combination this is with Prairie Dropseed! Shooting Star has a perfect place to shine in the early spring and as it dies back in June, the dropseed matures into its graceful summer form.”
The other fun note is that Shooting Star is buzz-pollinated by bumblebees. It is really fun to hear them hard at work while out enjoying the garden. All pollinators collect only pollen as Shooting Star does not offer a nectar reward. Add them to any garden; their spring blooms will always bring you joy! These native North American plants are wonderful in rock gardens, at the edge of a border or in a naturalistic setting,” Freeland wrote. “In a shade garden, combine them with Jacob’s ladder, ginger and ferns.”

Dodecatheon meadia
Common name: Shooting Star Height: 12-18” Spread: 6-8” Bloom time: April-June Bloom color: White, pink, purple with yellow center Foliage: Basal rosette of lance-shaped foliage disappears by summer Culture: Part to full shade in moist, rich soil. Does not tolerate poor drainage.
Editor’s Note: Honorary Lifetime ILCA Member Kathy Freeland, a certifiable plant geek, was a regular contributor to The Landscape Contractor starting in the late 1990s. She introduced readers to strange and sometimes exotic plants, frequently offering suggestions on how they might be employed in the landscape. In a world of euonymous and impatiens, she offered a path less travelled. Twenty years later, we offer a look back at how some of her recommendations have stood the test of time.

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