A walk down the primroses path

Another trough-dweller, P. farinosa; as the flowers mature, the flower stalks extend to about 2" above the basal rosette:

A 'Gold-laced' variety, starting to bloom:

A P. alpicola - a fragrant, summer-blooming species. Poor thing looks like it needs a drink, though! Thus species is very reliable here (in my experience, anyway) in what are probably marginal conditions for it - surprising, since in prime habitats (British Isles, for example), they get a great deal taller, apparently.

Your primula's are just so beautifully grown! Do you water them often?
I couldn't grow any of them at my last house - they'd just melt away. Here
I have them competing with the grass is one spot (the japonica's). I'm
planning to remove the grass to extend the area for the primroses. :-)

Thanks Tammy & Alta, I, too, am a huge fan of primroses like Kath and have a lot to learn about rock gardening - Those were gorgeous pics of flowers & gardens. Also, like Alta, we do not have a spring or natural pond on our wannabe primrose hill.

As I mentioned on Alta's other thread, Tammy's P. japonica seed germinated beautifully last spring from a March winter sowing, but had to be planted somewhere other than our shady hill as I had hoped - many to-dos still to do.

Nevertheless, I'll be wintersowing seed from the seed exchanges of the American Primrose Society* and NARGS** to my heart's content this winter. Can anyone recommend some companion plants for primroses for a four season, dry-ish shady hillside garden? We got through a 10" below normal year of precipitation with no losses - including azaleas on said hill - without watering.

Regarding the collection of primrose seed, I've heard of bagging the pods with pieces of panty hose and twist ties.

*http://www.americanprimrosesociety.org/index.html

**http://www.nargs.org/

To newbies like me, I think it might be too late to join the APS seed exchange, but it would still be a very good idea to see if it's possible to join NARGS for its seed exchange.

ps - Deno mentions in his book that no seed germinated of P. sieboldii that were sown 40-70-40 (means 40*F for 3 months, followed by 70*F for 3 months, followed by 40*F for three months - hope I have that right). However, my winter sown seed germinated fine that came from NARGS - how likely do you think it might be that this was mislabeled seed?

Tammy,
Yes, we generally do have to water a few times through the season. We only get, on average, 16" of precipitation here annually (compared to, apparently, something like 40" on average for Pennsylvania). Another difference in climate is that our summers are cool - we may get a week or 10 days of 30 degree Celsius (86 degrees F) in a summer, and not often much hotter or longer than that. People here start complaining about how hot it is when it hits 70 degrees F! So a lot of primroses suffer from inadequate moisture here, but at least they don't "melt away". For example, I killed many Primula viallii before finally admitting defeat - they are winter-hardy but one has to construct special conditions for them to provide enough moisture.

But... where there's a will, there's a way. This lady lives here (see her gardens, below) - fascinating website:
http://www.primulaworld.com/PWweb/personal.shtml

Bluespiral,
I wouldn't conclude that your P. sieboldii was mislabelled just on that basis.
Deno's records (and who knows how many trials are represented here) also say 62% germinated in his test at 70D-40-70D... When seeds are wintersown outdoors, and go through various temperature fluctuations, is it really possible to pin down which of Deno's standardized treatments it most closely resembles? Anyway, your experience is another demonstration of the effectiveness of using "nature" (i.e. outdoor temperature fluctuation) to break seed dormancy. (And who can beat nature at this? LOL!)
Another thing I've noticed is that there are often a few "rogue" seeds in a batch that will germinate early... which suits me, as I generally only want 2 or 3 of any plant to try it out. By contrast, Deno's studies were aimed at determining the methods required to break dormancy for a statistically significant portion of the seed sample (or at least that's the way I interpret it).
Lori

Lori, Thanks for the primrose link-what a great resource!-Kath

Tammy, your frondosa is not the real thing. Frondosa is very similar to farinosa. Here is a pic of mine

Where to start with my primula....I have quite a few, including most of the ones shown. A few 'others' include: P. capitata...blooms in August!

P. luteola

P. cortusoides

Primula hirsuta

Primula villosa

Primula sinopurpurea

Primula sieboldii

Primula pedemontana

Primula rosea