Garden Answers (UK)

Choose the perfect primrose

Primulas come in a dazzling choice of shapes and colours. Val Bourne shares her tips for collectors

Primulas come in a dazzling choice of shapes and colours

Queen bees are buzzing as they forage in the spring garden, and primroses are a favourite. These pretty blooms take their name from ‘prima rosa’, or first flower. Pale yellow Primula vulgaris, our native primrose, has a secret strategy to aid seed setting. It has two flower types; thrum-eyed flowers have a boss of stamens at the top, and pin-eyed flowers with a prominent stigma poking above the stamens. As a bee travels from flower to flower, pollen gets caught in the hairs on its body and is transferre­d straight onto the sticky stigmas. This ensures cross pollinatio­n, so primroses are perfect in a wilder setting, because they set seed so willingly.

Fascinatin­g curiositie­s

Early gardeners gave special names to the inevitable variants in wild population­s. Hose-in-hose describes one flower sitting inside another, referring to the way an Elizabetha­n gentleman might wear two pairs of tights with their doublets on chilly days. Primula tommasinii ‘You and Me’ is a modern strain sold by Owl’s Acre Seed. There were double-flowered forms too; ‘Lilacena Plena’ (or ‘Quaker’s Bonnet’) is said to date from the 18th century. Others had a ruff of green petals under their flowers known as Jack in the green primroses; cream-white ‘Dawn Ansell’,

raised by Welsh breeder Dr Cecil Jones in the 1960s, is a modern example. Others, called galligaski­ns, have foliage that’s half leaf and half flower. These old names are still used for these fascinatin­g curiositie­s. There have been three significan­t recent developmen­ts in primrose breeding. American Florence Bellis developed a series of colourful seed strains between 1930 and 1940. She named them Barnhaven primroses, after her run-down Oregon home, and was the first to produce a hardy strong blue. Florence’s Barnhavens have a distinct yellow eye and the colourful bedding primroses (which aren’t generally hardy) owe much to her breeding work. Florence also named the Cowichans. These polyanthas have a cluster of flowers held on a strong stem and they often lack a yellow eye. I love their evocative names such as red ‘Venetian’ and purple-blue ‘Amethyst’. Doubles rarely set seed but, thanks to micro-propagatio­n, are now more widely available. Garden centres often sell named doubles including silver-laced blue ‘Miss Indigo’, peachy pink ‘Camaieu’ and scarlet ‘Corporal Baxter’. The hardy Belarina doubles, raised by Cambridge-based plant breeder David Kerley, are long lived. Primroses with dark crinkled foliage, have been raised by Irishman Joe Kennedy including almost-black-leaved delicate pink ‘Drumcliffe’ and strong-red ‘Innisfree’, while ‘Dark Rosaleen’ is a burgundy and pink-flowered polyanthus type. Cowslips (Primula veris) are much more sun loving and prefer good drainage in open ground. Perfect for a mini-meadow, their foliage stays neat and tidy all year round. Primroses and cowslips hybridise freely to produce plants topped with several flowers, called a polyanthus. Plant different types and you’ll get interestin­g variations, which is all part of their charm.

Primroses take their name from ‘prima rosa’, literally first flower