Transfixed by trilliums
The Seattle Times
April 8, 2006 Saturday
Fourth Edition
Retiree amasses hundreds of flowers in backyard
Kayla Webley
Seattle Times Eastside bureau
Ervin Nalos calls his backyard a forest.
With its tall trees, ferns and wildflowers, it is distinct from many suburban backyards and their groomed lawns and flower boxes. His has huckleberries, ferns, towering cedars, spruce and Douglas fir trees with woodpecker holes.
But what really sets Nalos’ backyard apart is the trilliums.
Nalos and his wife, Margaret, have been collecting trilliums since 1964.
Through a friend who worked on housing developments, Nalos would hear about places with trilliums that were about to be bulldozed. He would “rescue” them, he said, with his wheelbarrow and yard tools.
He got 30 to 40 from Snoqualmie Ridge before the housing development came.
When his collection reached about 50, he started more plants from the seedlings and watched the collection multiply to about 400 in his Bellevue backyard.
He tried to grow them on his own once, but out of 200 seeds not one came up.
“Nature just has that special touch,” he said.
Now there is a small weathered sign stapled to a tree trunk at the beginning of the trail that leads down into Nalos’ forest: “Trillium Blvd,” it reads.
The white petals and three large leaves of the Northwest native plant dot each walkway and trail through the 1.2-acre property.
Nalos grows the variety called Trillium ovatum, also known as Western trillium.
While some species of trillium are rare or even endangered, Trillium ovatum still thrives from British Columbia to California, said Carrie Bowman, technical assistant with the University of Washington’s Elisabeth C. Miller Horticulture Library.
The trillium is a woodland flowering plant that likes shaded areas, particularly under evergreen trees, she said.
Nalos, an 81-year old retired Boeing engineer, became interested in trilliums not long after he moved to the Northwest from Switzerland in the early 1960s.
He was wandering through a park one day and saw the “delicate” flower and wondered if it could be transplanted.
As it turns out trilliums have hearty bulbs, he said. And so the collecting commenced.
Ask him what he loves so much about trilliums and he pauses, searching his brain to explain what draws him to the flower.
“It’s just when you walk and get a great, beautiful smell and perfume,” he said. “And watching them come up every year.”
The perennial trilliums are blooming now and will continue to do so for 10 to 12 days before their pristine white petals turn a reddish-purple color and die off.
To make sure their neighbors and church friends get to enjoy the short-lived bloom, the couple is hosting the fourth annual “Trillium Tea Party” today at their home in the Bridle Trails neighborhood.
The invitation reads “children welcome.” Nalos said he loves to see kids using his forest, with its winding trails and dark nooks, for hide-and-seek amid the trilliums.
Recent Comments