Primulas for months of flowering

Press, 10 July 1987, Page 14

Primulas for months of flowering

Gardener’s W diary h

Derrick Rooney

It often doesn’t pay to be dogmatic about plants. When I first saw the flowers of Primula megaseafolia (obtained with great expectations from a Southland nursery, for it is a rarity) I wanted to shout — but not for joy. What a disappointment! Miserable little off-purple things, scarcely far enough above the ground to be seen among the leaves. Nice foliage, though; big and roundish and almost glossy, and long lasting, hanging on from early spring to early winter. So I treated it as a foliage plant, poking it in a pocket of leafy soil between two small rhododendrons. There didn’t seem much point in handling it with kid gloves. Its chances of lasting beyond midsummer seemed minimal. “Not,” said an English reference, “a plant for hot, dry summers; it thrives in the cool, humid north.” Be that as it may, the plant is still growing where I put it, after one of the hottest, driest summer spells on record. And just the other day I had to

admit, if not to a liking, at least to a certain respect for it. There is was, the meoning after a five-degree screen frost, pushing up and actually opening a preococious flower while the rhododendron foliage around it was still limp with cold. No plant that treats frost with such contempt can be all bad. It shouldn’t, in fact, be flowering yet; it isn’t due until August. But a lot of things are out of kilter in this unusually mild winter that we have been having. And any flower in July is welcome — doubly so when it is a forerunner to one of the premier groups of garden flowers. Primula is a huge genus with species distributed throughout the Northern Hemisphere and extending into temperate South America. There are primulas from bogs and rpimulas from semi-deserts;

primulas from the seacoast and primulas from the high mountains. Tiny teasures for the tinest of trough and robust perennials for the border. Even a couple of little shrubs.

The primulas include that familiar garden flower, the polyanthus, which has been developed from the wild oxlips, cowslips, and primroses of Europe. Among the less familiar types are so many species that selecting the ones to grow can cause real headaches. So here are a few notes on important types, and non-exclusive lists of primulas that will come into

flower at intervals in the next couple of months, as the days lengthen and the mean temperature rises. For sunny rock gardens, try the Juliana primroses or any of the Auricula group: Primula auricula itself (but not the bedding types sold in boxes of six), bauhinii, marginata, clusiana, glaucescens, pubescens, minima, latifolia, hirsuta, or any of their

legion named hybrids, such as “Rufus,” “Flaldonside,” “Harlow Car,” “Diane,” or “Drake’s White.” All are good. These don’t actually need full sun all day; half a day is enough. They do like gritty, well-drained soil, kept moist in summer and a bit on the dry side in winter, and they like a bit of nourishment, too, contrary to popular belief that they can exist on the smell of an oily fertiliser bag. Several years ago I lifted all the primulas from my rock garden one spring, worked in a mixture of mature cow-dung and crushed Oamaru

stone, and put the primulas back. I’ve never had them so good. In a cooler rock garden, shaded from hot sunshine and well laced with rotted vegetable matter (peat, compost or leaf mould) try some of the “Bird’seye” group; Primula farinosa, warscheneskyana, frondosa, modesta, laurenceana, rosea, luteola. Primula vialii, an extra-

ordinary plant with narrow spikes like red-hot pokers, will thrive here, too. This group of primulas mainly comes from the cooler regions of the Northern Hemisphere and there is a tendency to think of them as Southland plants; but they can be grown in Canterbury. Just don’t let them bake in summer or drown in winter. And make sure they aren’t overgrown or smothered by larger neighbours. Primula warschenewskyana has the longest name but is one of the smallest of the group. It was introduced to Western gardens from Turkestan in 1901, remained little known for more than half a century, and has been appreciated by rock gardeners generally only in the last 10 years or so. It is not at all difficult to grow, although like all of this group it likes fresh soil, and needs to be split up and moved after flowering every second year. If it’s doing really well you can split it up every year, make big patches of it, and still have some to give away to friends. It hAs up to eight rosy pink flowers on centime-tre-long stems in a spring,

and sometimes in autumn too, and needs a cool aspect but dislikes shade. It is one of the first to die if overgrown by bigger plants. Primula farinosa is the true “bird’s-eye primula,” growing only Bcm tall, with sprays of tiny, rosy pink, yellow-eyed flowers. Primula frondosa, from the Balkans, is similar but, perhaps, both daintier and of more robust constitution. In the wild it grows on wet rocks, but it is adaptable to drier condi-

tions in cultivation. A white eye distinguishes it from Primula farinosa. Primula modesta, despite its name, has larger flowers than either of these. It frequently flowers two or three times during the spring and summer, putting up little sprays of cool pink flowers, about Bcm high. There is a white form, which is lovely, and which comes true from seed, the only satisfactory way to propagate most of this group.

Primula luteola, whose relationship to the rest of the group is not immediately obvious, is the last to flower, delaying the event to early summer. It is also the biggest, growing 30cm tall, and has bright yellow flowers instead of the usual pink. Not difficult to grow, it thrives in humus soil with sharp drainage. Originally from the Caucasus, it has been cultivated for nearly two centuries, but is still far from common.

“Just don’t let them bake in summer, or drown in winter.”