Think before you allow poppies to proliferate. Poppies rob a lot of goodness from your soil.
21.07.2023 - 22:52 / awaytogarden.com
I’M ALWAYS SURPRISED BY HOW MANY CANDELABRA PRIMROSES there are by bloom time, because you never really know until just beforehand, when Primula japonica’s lettuce-like leaves seem to suddenly spread and stretch up and out from nowhere. Whoosh! This year, in the considerable shade of some old winterberry hollies and viburnums, I seem to have a positive infestation. Things could most definitely be worse than to be surrounded by these charming creatures.The candelabra primulas, ranging from white to reddish (even bawdier than my favorite bawdy primrose!), require no care whatsoever: Plant a few in a shady, moist spot (the classic location: streamside) and let them do their thing. I started with several maybe eight years ago. If they’re happy, they will colonize, sowing around and moving a bit, with more plants some years and fewer others.
The ones nearest to the edge where bed meets lawn here sow into the turf, a habit I consider generous of them, not thuggish. I simply dig out the little babies early in the month, when the foliage is the size of baby salad greens, and move them into new spots or pot them up to share with friends. They don’t miss a beat; the foliage quickly expands to nearly 12 inches.
Primula japonica blooms from mid-May until almost July for me, and in the most amusing way: by sending up additional whorled flowerheads above the initial one (you can see the next unopened tier in the detail shot, in the middle of each cluster of already-open blooms). And up they go, from 12 inches at first flush to about 18, successive layers of color stacked on top of one another. Hence the Liberace-style name: candelabra.In Zones 4-8, where they are hardy, garden centers probably stock these in the shade perennials
Think before you allow poppies to proliferate. Poppies rob a lot of goodness from your soil.
Compact, early flowering shrubs with jam making potential from fruit in autumn make these plants well worth cultivating. As I think you can now imagine Chaenomeles make good and often under utilised shrubs and small trees in the garden landscape. Varieties vary from 3 feet to 12 feet in height. I grew my plants from seed supplied by the Royal Horticultural Society in the annual seed distribution.
The larger Acer is not Japonica but Davidii. Under it’s branches is a more tender Acer palmatum Japonica var. dissectum ‘Inaba-shidare’ or the purple leaved Japanese maple.
National Auricula and Primrose Society (NAPS) Northern Section
If you are looking for a show stopping display of spring flowers then why not try planting  primary colours of Red, Blue and Yellow in the same bed.
My Fastia Japonica is coming into full winter flower after a summer of evergreen leaves that provide interest and structure in the border. For short while the plant was treated as an indoor decoration but it has not looked back after it was planted out 2 years ago. The white pompom flowers are rich in nectar providing food for the few flying insects that are around during winter. They stand out against the dark green leaves. It is strange that a tropical style plant with large hand shaped leaves should flower so well late in our season. When the growth has been lush I have to occasionally give it a prune. I try not to cut individual leaves.
‘Kinlough Beauty’ is an exceptionally hardy Primrose from the Primula family. . To maintain vigour divide ‘Kinlough Beauty’ every couple of years or so after blooming. This is when your free plants arise. I have just got nine new healthy plants from one clump. Other primroses can be divided in a similar manner.
We gardeners hopefully learn as we go along and this post is an update of a 6 year old report on indoor primulas.
Primula Allionii Pink Aire
Are you looking at plants in your garden and wondering why they aren’t flowering?
Lovers of succulents and oddball plants in general grow bowiea with most of its showy, round green bulbs above the soil surface, and with its twining filigree of stem-like foliage trained up onto some kind of support. That’s how the plant in my dining room (shown) is growing right now. Probably neither is what happens in the wild, but no matter; let the foliage climb up something or let it dangle; bury the bulbs a lot or hardly at all.Order a baby at Logee’s, or better yet order three and cluster them in one pot for company. Each bulb can reach 8 inches in diameter over time, and as for the foliage—there seem to be no end to it (until it simply stops).What matters is that you give it bright light and gritty soil and respect bowiea’s desire to sleep all winter. Stop watering it when the tendrils start to turn yellow and dry up in fall, then water not at all or very rarely when it is sleeping. I usually give it a little drink perhaps once a month in winter out
My plant came home with me in the early 1990s from Western Hills Nursery in Northern California, which still sells it today (including by mail, apparently).Much smaller on all fronts than the all-green Kerria japonica, and with single (not the bawdier puffy double) flowers, K.j. ‘Picta’ is an airy thing, perhaps 4 or 5 feet tall. Because it’s a bit of a colonizer, the potential width varies greatly; mine is now 10 feet across. I dig up suckers and share them or move them to another part of the garden, if it gets too wide, and a few times over the years when it was looking thin, I simply cut the whole thing to the g