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Photo Credit: © Pennystone Gardens

Good fortune arrived one spring, when this healthy plant set up shop in a quiet corner of the garden.

Remember that television cliché, “Don’t try this at home?” To the average gardener, it probably conjures images of some death-defying stunt, but what springs to my mind is images of an attempt to relocate some lovely pink lady’s slippers in my yard.

Relocating any native plant from its perfect home in the wild to your more than likely imperfect garden can kill them off (not to mention bite you with a hefty fine if you move a plant without proper permission). And few plants serve as better evidence of this than pink lady’s slipper (Cypripedium acaule). One of the many orchids that grow wild in American woodlands, this beauty has the reputation of being among the fussiest of its kind.

While you can buy the lovely yellow lady’s slipper (C. parviflorum) from many vendors, and you can find the increasingly rare showy lady’s slipper (C. reginae) here and there, you’re not likely to find C. acaule anywhere but out in nature, because it’s such a challenge to grow. It’s one of those species that tempts even the most responsible native plant enthusiast to try relocating one. But pink lady’s slipper is extremely specific about its habitat. And even if you can harvest its seed (which may or may not germinate), it can take many years for the resultant plant to produce the strange flower so attractive to admirers.

This plant is so uncommon, when a friend noticed a flock of them in our yard, he counseled us not to say much about it because of the potential for poaching! Twenty years later, we haven’t noticed people sneaking in to dig them up…just the grazing deer.

Eventually we decided to fence our garden to prevent the four-legged invaders from eating everything. Our patches of C. acaule remained where they had managed to grow quite nicely for years: outside the fence. We still celebrate the return of one slipper that took up residence inside the fence, and we were ecstatic when a second one appeared nearby (a rare fortune)!