Native Woodland Spring Wildflower Bare Root Garden Collection

There is a narrow window each year — three or four weeks in earliest spring — when the woodland floor belongs entirely to the flowers. The trees are still bare. Light pours straight down onto ground that has been dark since October. And in that brief opening, before the canopy closes over and the shade returns for another year, the earliest natives rise, bloom, and take their season. This collection is built for that window. Three woodland natives that have been performing this same quiet act in American forests for thousands of years — arching sprays of bells, tiny suspended pantaloons swinging from a wiry stem, and low fans of iris that carpet the ground and stay all season long. They are the answer to the shaded corner you have written off. The strip along the north fence. The ground beneath the old maple where grass refuses and hostas look tired. Plant them once, walk away, and let them keep their own calendar. 🌿 Inside Your Collection Virginia Bluebell (Mertensia virginica) — 5 bare roots. Nodding clusters on arching stems, 18–24 inches, one of the great sights of the eastern spring woodland. Dutchman's Breeches (Dicentra cucullaria) — 5 bare roots. Delicate suspended blooms strung along a slender arching stalk above finely cut foliage, 6–10 inches. Crested Wild Iris (Iris cristata) — 5 bare roots. A low spreading native iris, 4–6 inches, that carpets shaded ground and holds it long after the others have gone. 📦 A Note on Arrival Bare roots arrive dormant — firm, pale, and entirely unremarkable to look at. This is exactly as it should be. There are no leaves and no stems until the ground warms. Plant them, water them once, and wait for spring to do the rest. 🌱 Growing Tips Plant in part to full shade in loose soil that drains freely and holds woodland moisture — the ground beneath deciduous trees is ideal Set roots 1–2 inches deep with the crown just below the surface; space bluebells and breeches 8–10 inches apart, iris 6–8 inches Water through the first season while roots establish, then let rainfall take over Bluebells and breeches are true spring ephemerals — foliage yellows and disappears by early summer and the plants rest underground. Mark their positions so you do not dig into them later. The crested iris stays and covers the gap 🎁 A Gift That Grows Some gifts are opened and forgotten by June. This one is opened, buried, and then forgotten until the following March — when it arrives all over again, unannounced, in a corner nobody was watching. It is a gift for the gardener who has run out of sunny space, for the new homeowner with a shaded lot they don't know what to do with, and for anyone who would rather receive something that keeps arriving than something that simply arrived. 💚 Every seed is a story waiting to grow. 🌱