Choose primroses for the spring garden
Long before Gregor Mendel's groundbreaking work in plant genetics, the cloth weavers of England were changing the primrose.
Workers who had woven textiles collectively fell in love with Primula auricle, a finicky European alpine species that they grew in little pots. The small perennials could be enjoyed outside the window on a shelf or in a window box. Before the end of the 18th century, gardeners were breeding them and competing with one another over the fancy offspring.
That was the humble birth of the modern flower show.
Sadly, the Industrial Revolution replaced the weavers with automated machines. The weavers and their favorite flower, Primula auricle, largely dropped out of sight. Because preserving the exquisite details of the flowers required protection from rain, they did not transition well into gardens.
But today in England there remain specialists who keep the legacy alive. Many of the exquisite gold-edged beauties are still in cultivation, though difficult to find in America.
Alpine primroses as well as their modern progeny are children of early spring. They thrive in the cool moist conditions so like those of England, but here our summers are so warm they often die out.
Flowers most often sold in American garden centers are in the Polyanthus group, treated as annual bedding plants in a vast array of intense colors. They are the result of crossing three species to attain optimal size and large flowers. Nothing is more charming in close-up beds and pots than these primroses.
The Polyanthus primroses begin life as a rosette of stiff corrugated leaves, blooming on a stout stalk with a ball of lovely flowers at the top. Some of the most coveted colors are cobalt blue and magenta, but they are sold in mixed flats as well as solid hues. Primroses are most often grouped with cool-season annuals such as pansies, violas, fragrant stocks and Iceland poppy.
Due to their small size and compact flowers, they fell out of favor for a long time, but seem to be making a comeback due to the interests of city gardeners who, like the weavers, grow their plants in pots. When you have a few plants on a windowsill, you want the brightest and most charming and architecturally interesting forms. Primroses fit the bill perfectly.
For those who live in woodland homesites, the fairy primrose and its relatives are the easiest and showiest of the bedding forms. They are not as common as the Polyanthus, but are intensely charming. Blossoms are small, typically rich shades of pink bundled together in dense whorls on the stem, which gives a two- or sometimes three-tier effect.
A slight breeze makes the flowers evoke images of small-skirted fairies dancing in the garden. You'll find the fairy primroses sold as bedding plants in six-packs or in quarts. For those with money to burn, they're also offered in 1-gallon containers in spectacular full bloom.
Small sizes are ideal for cool-climate gardeners who have many months of enjoyment as they mature. Larger-blooming plants fit best into hot-climate gardens that lack time for full flowering before the onset of summer heat.
Primroses deserve a place in every home to herald the onset of spring. Make plans to bring them into your windowsill, porch, patio or garden to enjoy the delicate beauty.
If you're lucky enough to come upon an auricle hybrid at specialty growers, know it's the legacy of the common working folk. Perhaps more important is knowing that these weavers, often illiterate and untrained in plant science, managed to cross-pollinate their plants and sift through the seedlings for the fruits of recessive genes. And though they had no sense of the science behind it, they put into practice the very process that yielded the birth of Mendelian genetics.