Friend of Gardening--In the Clover

A sure sign of March in grocery store floral aisles is the appearance of "Shamrock Plants," usually in shades of bright green, with tiny five-petaled white flowers nodding above the foliage. I ran into fellow Master Gardener Candy Gates while shopping this week and, surely enough, her grocery cart sported an oxalis regnelli (Lucky Shamrock). I laughed a little and remarked how tempting these plants are to those of us deprived of green, growing things outside our windows. "Oh, I bought one for myself the other day," she said. "This one's for a friend."

I can't remember for certain, but I think my first oxalis was a gift, probably around the time of my daughter Emily's birth, twenty years ago this last Wednesday. From that time on, I've had a soft spot for these harbingers of St. Patrick's Day. I don't think I still have the original plant though, probably having over-watered it or given up on it about this same time of year, when plants in the house are beginning to look a little the worse for wear.

I do still have my second specimen, an oxalis triangularis (Purple Shamrock Plant). For some reason or other I paid a visit to Jim Lindsay's bait shop on East Main Cross many years ago. Perhaps I was taking Emily and Mark fishing or had just stopped in to ask a question about antiques and collectibles. The reason has long escaped my memory, but I remember the visit because he had a table with several striking specimens of this variety of oxalis. The leaves of this plant are about three inches across, colored vivid purple, with lighter shading near the petiole, and delicate pink flowers. Jim told me that his dad had them growing in his yard, I seem to recall, and he just thought he'd bring in some to sell. I'm not certain whether he meant they were growing in the ground or not, and I've never had the nerve to give that a try. Anyway, the plant is still with me—a miracle considering my usual house-plant track record.

Just a couple of years later, I was racking my brain for something to present at a March meeting of Mark's 4-H Clover-buds meeting, when I lit upon the St. Patrick's Day theme. Off to the store I went in search of leprechaun stickers and little bags of gold coins to be had in the early Easter candy aisles. Searches for "pots of gold" at the end of a rainbow aside, I was still looking for activities to share with the kids, when I walked by several "Lucky Shamrocks" in the floral department. I took home three plants and hacked them in half, found some extra pots and potting mix, and all of us planted "shamrock plants that evening. Clover-buds is a parents-and-kids program for 5- to 7-year-olds, so this was manageable—just barely. Anyway, we had fun and I still have the plant we brought home. It's funny how these plants just seem to be connected to so many of my motherhood memories.

I came upon my oxalis articulata (Pink Shamrock) as a result of Emily's plant-sitting for our friend Nina Wunderlich. For several summers, Nina would ask Emily to come down and water her house-plants while she was gone on vacation. She usually moved her plants outdoors for the summer—the single best way to give shamrock plants a shot in the arm. Now, Nina is a house-plant aficionado. She really goes the extra mile to keep her plants happy and healthy year round and is rewarded quite well. It's always a pleasure to visit her home, with many members of her indoor plant society putting me in mind of my mom's and grandma's homes. Anyway, she kindly gave me a Christmas cactus with an little bonus oxalis plant growing in the same pot.

This shamrock plant features bright green leaves, with three full and downright curvaceous lobes. The petioles are extremely long, usually somewhere around 5 inches on a mature plant, and the leaves droop gracefully over the side of its pot. Its flowers are a bright pink, bobbing gracefully in the breeze well above the foliage. The color is so eye-catching you'd swear you were looking at an artificial flower.

All three of these plants cozily live together year-round on three-level plant stand. They spend the winter indoors, nearly but not quite going dormant with the heat of the house. After the really cold weather is over, they are usually on my porch-step, daring the cats to knock the whole arrangement over. Throughout the warm months of spring, summer, and fall, new flushes of leaves and flowers appear, and they look as good as the day I first brought them home. Two summers ago, I noticed a very tiny baby shamrock plant in the begonia pot below them and I re-potted it. In spite of a rough early life, it decided to take off last summer and has been thriving near one of my basement windows all winter. I think it likes the cooler temperatures downstairs. Its foliage is bronze-purple, with white flowers, so I'm feeling awfully proud of myself for producing an entirely different plant—completely by accident of course.

Late in February I attended a garden conference, complete with a vendor show. Yes, you guessed it. One of the vendors had several pots of oxalis that I just couldn't resist. My latest addition sports the patterned leaves of the Purple Shamrock and gorgeous lavender flowers. I'm thinking I'm going to have to go on the hunt for some nice new pots…

Country cousin to cultivated shamrock plants is the lowly common wood sorrel. Readers will certainly find this pesky plant growing in lawns and gardens. Some days it seems like I spend half the day pulling these out of every nook and cranny in my garden. I do have and interesting bronze-purple-leaved sport near the grape arbor and I left them alone for a long time last summer since I've seen very similar plants sold in nurseries, but then I got tired of the little things and yanked them out in August.

Common yellow oxalis has the clover-like leaves of the species and small yellow flowers. Another name for this sorrel is sour grass because the foliage and the seed-pods, which put one in mind of miniature okra pods, are tart to the taste. We called them pickles when we were kids and would occasionally put them in our "salads" of clover and other assorted greens while playing house. Eating a large number of leaves or pods is NOT a good idea, since they contain oxalic acid, a chemical responsible for the sour taste that has a slight degree of toxicity.

My grandma has a fondness for the larger Great Yellow Woodsorrel (oxalis grandis), often letting it flourish in a flower pot outside, and getting very aggravated with me when she sees me uprooting its small cousin in my yard. This variety has been reported to reach heights near three feet, according to the website "Wildflowers of the Southeastern U.S." on 2bnTheWild.com (http://2bnthewild.com/index2.shtml), but I've only seen it grow around fifteen inches high in Randolph County.

I was surprised to find oxalis plants covered in a lecture at my garden conference recently. If you've visited Missouri Botanical Gardens and enjoyed the bulbs and summer perennials on the grounds (i.e., irises, daylilies), you've witnessed the expertise of Jason Delaney. His wonderful discussion of bulbs, rhizomes, and tubers for gardens included shamrock plants. They are listed as hardy for Zone 6 (Taylorville is considered to be 5A, though sheltered areas I your garden may provide you with a spot to experiment. Perhaps that's what Jim Lindsay's dad was taking advantage with the purple shamrock plants he grew.

Jason also provided a valuable tip for people like me who get concerned about the plants rather distressing state of dormancy after a winter indoors. It's been a long time since Clover--buds days, when I divided the plants I bought from the grocery store without really knowing anything about the root system underneath. Now that I know it's a rhizome-like bulb I'm dealing with, I think I'll get brave and divide and conquer my shamrock plants once warm weather gets here. Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Photo of Shamrock Plant taken by Mark Podeschi. New shamrock plants appear every March to celebrate St. Patrick's Day.