Spotlight on: Shooting Stars

I will never forget seeing Shooting Stars for the first time- I was just out of my freshman year in college and I was backpacking in Oregon and walking across an alpine bog for the first time.  The feeling of the soft ground squishing beneath my feet and the earthy smells still linger fresh in my mind. I also remember the mosquitos.  It was beautiful.  More beautiful than I could imagine.  I was happier than I could ever imagine being. It was there that I found the shooting stars.

Beautiful purple flowers jutted up from the saturated ground and threw back their petals, thrusting their yellow and black faces forward.  I was enchanted.  I simply loved them.  They were simple.  They were elegant.  They were very appropriately named.

Shooting Stars that first captured my heart.

I came across this photo gallery when searching the web for native garden info and recommend it to anyone who wants to see native plant porn.  This is just breathtaking work- Saxton Holt's Gallery.  This shot of his of a Shooting Star helps you see what it is that I fell in love with all those years ago...

The ones that I loved grew in alpine bogs and other very wet places and were semi-aquatic Dodecatheon alpinum... imagine my surprise when I was hiking in Sonoma County and saw them in a dry meadow for the first time!  Although D. alpinum is a thirsty plant, we have a local species that actually needs really dry summer soils in order to establish- D. clevelandii.

I had been scouring native nursery online inventories trying to find a source for them to no avail when I found a seed supplier.  I was a bit startled to realize that they were coming all the way from the UK!  My love of them found me ordering five packets as soon as I could.  I always prefer to buy local to help preserve local genetic variation, but.... I couldn't help it.

I read on one native nursery blog that shooting stars might take up to three years before they flower- so hence the lack of abundance in the nurseries... so far, I have my fingers crossed that my little seeds will eventually yield the spectacular flowers I adore so much.

I mixed four of the packets into our "canvas" for the meadow, essentially sprinkling them throughout the front yard.  But since I love them so much- I saved one packet to plant in egg crates.  They make great seedling nurseries.  I am THRILLED to report that three of the seeds that I can see on the surface have miniscule white root just starting to poke through!  WE HAVE GERMINATION!  Mere mortals might not see it without a microscope... but a dedicated (and obsessed) nerd will find that tiny tell-tale sign of emergence.  So, even if our meadow plantings bust, I hope to have some grown separately that I can transplant as they get bigger.  Fingers crossed for one of my favorites!  (PS- I kind of say that about all wildflowers... but shooting stars really are my favorites.  Well... those and, and and.)