First Rose?

Prima Rosa is Latin for 'first rose' and is where the name primrose comes from. Obviously just like the Christmas rose, Lenten rose, rock rose etc. primroses are not really roses.  

I love primroses, especially the native ones which like our English bluebell has suffered from years of having been picked for posies. Picking the flowers meant that the plants didn't seed themselves causing the wild stock to diminish.

I'm not alone in my love of our native primrose. I know many fellow bloggers have also said that this is one of their favourite flowers and we are in good company as Queen Victoria and one of her prime ministers - Disraeli  - loved them too. Victoria sent a wreath of primroses to Disraeli's funeral. Darwin was also fascinated by the primrose as it has developed a very clever way of ensuring that flowers are cross pollinated.

There are two types of primrose flower. Some plants have pin-eyed flowers.

In these flowers the stigma - the female part of the flower - is prominent and the anthers - the male parts - that produce the pollen are deeper inside the cup of petals.

The thrum-eyed flowers are the opposite way round so that the stigma is lower inside the flower and the pollen producing anthers are more prominent. 

This way the different types of flower can pollinate one another but can't pollinate the same type of flower which means that plants don't pass on their failings to their offspring.

We have a whole row of primroses on the allotment plot which I grew from seed and planted in what I thought was a similar position to their preferred hedgerow. These are shaded in summer when the surrounding plants are in full leaf.

Several years ago managed to raise about six plants from a packet of bought in seed but have found by far the best way to raise new plants is to sow fresh seed collected from plants and sown straight away. As seeds shouldn't be collected from wild plants my seed came from the few plants that I started with. Fortunately I must have had both pin and thrum eyed versions as I raised dozens of young plants.

This year I was planning to raise more plants to add a few more to our garden but I've been saved a job as when tidying up the ground around the primroses planted  on the plot I found plenty self sown seedlings some of which have been potted up to grow on.

The idea is to plant these in the garden under the magnolia tree in the shady area where the hellebores and snowdrops are planted so I can enjoy them from the house window.

Just over a week to the deadline for entries
 Don't forget the competition to win a fire pit - more information here (I do hope you manage to take part as I am looking forward to reading your stories - I'm not judging so I can just enjoy!)

Copyright: Original post from Our Plot at Green Lane Allotments http://glallotments.blogspot.co.uk/ author S Garrett