Buying Primroses and Rosebud Primrose Plants
The mail order catalogues and newspapers are carrying lots of adverts for plug plants. Pansies, Violas and Primroses seem the most popular offerings and will give a good show next spring.
Rosebud Primroses
- Some plants have captured the imagination of growers and this year it certainly applies to Rosebud Primroses.
- These double Primroses have a sweet fragrance when you get close to the flowers.
- The display is generally in a vivid mixture of colours including warm shades.
- They flower in late Autumn and early Spring.
- Thompson & Morgan search for seeds and plants
Plug Plant Sizes and Tips
- Large plugs arrive when the plants are 4″ tall with several healthy leaves. They are often packed in 24’s.
- Small plugs are often just better than germinated seedlings. Usually packed in larger quantities, 120’s, for growing on.
- Medium plugs may be 2-3″ high plants depending on supplier.
- If you can give better conditions by potting up the plugs and growing them on then do so.
- If you are going to grow in containers or window boxes you may want to plant them directly into there final home.
Primrose Growing Tips
- Primroses tend to flower on short stems. Polyanthus have longer stems and more delicate flowers.
- Primroses can have masses of flowers on one plant and will provide a splash of colour if planted in neutral or slightly acid soil.
- Double Primroses like a partially shaded position and large quantities of organic matter.
- Rosebud Primroses do not set seed, but the plant will keep producing blooms in an effort to set seed.
- Strong flowering exhausts the plant and they need extra feeding and watering with a weak solution of high potash or tomato fertiliser from when buds first appear.
- Pick some blooms for the house as they keep well in water.
Spring flowering Primroses are plants I am happy to buy mail order. They are easier and more reliable than growing from seed. The choice is improving although if you want a particular variety you will have to DIY.