I love wildflowers and have been wowed by them since I was just a little boy. I remember seeing pink ladyslippers in a pine woods in Hingham, Massachusetts when I was just two years old, and being awed by them. My mom wouldn’t let me pick them, of course. She knew they were rare and special.

Over the years I have been given or purchased many kinds of wildflowers including showy lady-slippers, trillium of several species, bloodroot, hepatica, Dutchman’s breeches, skunk cabbage, woodland violets, twinflower, May apple and more. But wildflowers are not like the many kinds of domesticated flowers that you can just plunk in the ground, water, and assume they will grow. Most wildflowers have special requirements that must be met in order to have them grow well. Let’s look at some of those requirements.

When I see a wildflower in its natural habitat I take note of several things: How much sun or shade is there? What are the other plants growing nearby, particularly trees? What kind of soil is there? Is it sandy, or sticky like clay? Is the soil wet or dry? Then, if I want to find a place on my property for that wildflower, I try to match the environmental conditions it likes in the wild.

Coltsfoot (Tussilago farfara) is considered a wildflower by some, a weed by others. Me? I like the bright yellow dandelion-like appearance by the side of the road before the dandelions bloom, and dug some up long ago. I put them a flower garden with rich soil, but they did not overwinter. It needs to grow in sandy, barren soil with almost no organic matter. Roadside gravel and sand suit it fine; rich, dark soil is not suitable. That was a lesson for me.

Coltsfoot was brought to the United States back in colonial days as a medicinal herb, good for lung disorders — but it has since been found to be toxic if administered in strong doses.

Hepatica (Hepatica acutiloba) is also considered an herbal remedy, this one for liver diseases. The leaves are lobed, and look vaguely like livers. It is a native to the northeast and is one of the earliest to bloom. It comes in white, lavender and (allegedly) a dark violet blue — though I have never seen any that color.

In the woods I see hepatica growing at higher elevations on east-facing slopes where beech trees predominate. I have it growing in an open mixed hardwood forest. It does not shed its leaves in the fall, though at this time of year the leaves look pretty ratty. It blooms in clumps with 20 or more flowers growing as a bouquet surrounded by last year’s leaves. The flowers only open on sunny days when the pollinators are out.

Also blooming now is bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis). This is a wonderful white propellershaped flower an inch or more across. The flowers do not last long, dropping to cover the ground after a few days. I have a double form of the flower that resembles a diminutive peony – it has many more petals than the standard form. The leaves resemble, at first, a green cigar rising from the soil, then open horizontally above the soil, large and round. The leaves look good all summer and can be used for a shady groundcover.

I’ve read that the double form of bloodroot has twice as many chromosomes and is, consequently, sterile. Many flowers drop their petals as soon as they have been pollinated, and since this one is sterile, the flowers last much longer. It is easily divided, and the clumps get bigger (for me) every year.

My favorite wildflower is the showy lady-slipper (Cypripedium reginae). This splendid orchid is pink with white petals and stands 18 to 24 inches tall. It likes neutral or slightly sweet soil that stays lightly moist. It thrives on sunlight, but will do fine in light shade. Once established it can be divided like a hosta by digging with a fork and gently separating the roots into smaller clumps. It is hardy to Zone 3 (minus 30). It is the last of my wildflowers to appear each spring.

As a boy I loved skunk cabbage (Symplocarpus foetidus) because boys, well, we love stinky things. I grew up in Woodbridge, Connecticut on a two-acre property that boasted a small brook and some wet areas around the brook where the skunk cabbages grew. Skunk cabbage is very early — it produces chemicals that react, creating heat to melt snow and ice. It is up to 5 degrees warmer inside the blossom than outside, and the flower, with its reddish outer covering, emits the odor of rotten meat. The heat and odors attract pollinators of various kinds.

Of the native wildflowers that have been “civilized” and are available at nurseries everywhere are creeping phlox (Phlox stononifera) and moss pink (Phlox subulata), obedient plant (Physostegia virginiana), cardinal flower (Lobelia cardinalis), snakeroot (Cimicifuga spp.), black-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia spp.), and turtlehead (Chelone lyonii). Those are all splendid flowers, and most require little special care.

To learn more about growing wildflowers I recommend Bill Cullina’s book, Growing and Propagating Wildflowers. It’s a big, pricey book ($40) with great color photos and worth the price.

HENRY’S BOOK, “The New Hampshire Gardener’s Companion,” is out in an expanded, updated second edition. His web site is www.Gardening-Guy.com.