Seeing Trillium ovatum blooming now in my Vancouver Island garden brings back sad memories of the dozens that died in my Burnaby garden starting about 30 years ago due to Dogwood Anthracnose (Discula destructiva). Starting in about 1986, that terrible disease not only killed huge numbers of beautiful dogwood trees in BC but other susceptible shrubs and perennials. The source of infection in my garden originated with a row of 3 Cornus nuttallii my neighbour had planted on our property line. It was easy to see they were under attack but the first I became aware of fungal problems in my garden was in the late 1980s. Almost as soon as the trilliums began to grow in the springtime, their leaves became mottled and, within days, they literally ‘melted’. Without the benefit of those leaves to build the rhizomes year after year, the plants eventually diminished and died. I felt powerless. Eventually, I moved to Vancouver Island to be rid of various fungal plagues that also attacked my rhododendrons. Although I’ve never regretted escaping that diseased environment, I can’t help but wonder if there was some cure or strategy that could have reversed the destruction anthracnose caused. Or, is there a cure now that wasn't available then?
As a child, back in 1975, my mother and I found a single white flower growing along the side of the road in a housing development in Coquitlam. Not knowing what it was we dug it up and planted it in the garden "because it was pretty". Little did we know that at that time it was in fact one of three protected plants in BC; the pacific dogwood, the rhododendron and the trillium (under the dogwood, rhododendron and trillium protection act of 1931, which was repealed in 2002) Slowly that single plant that we "illegally removed" began to multiply until I had to find a new home for them in the backyard (under a dogwood of all things) where they continued to prosper until the house was sold and reno'd in 2016. I don't know whatever became of those plants but I did bring a pot of them with me when I moved to Vancouver in 2004. And again, for the last 15 years they have been prospering and spreading; so much so that I even donated some of the plants to UBC a number of years ago. And for as long as I've had them I still enjoy their beauty every spring and hope to continue doing so for many years to come.
