After the Snow Melts, the Fun Begins

MANY years ago, we had a National Collection of Primulas that we assembled under the auspices of Plant Heritage, an august horticultural organisation  that was, at that time, called the National Council for the Conservation of Plants and Gardens (NCCPG).

- Charles Quest Ritson

We enjoyed making the collection enormously and the generosity of our fellow enthusiasts was immensely cockle-warming.

Our primula collection was limited to European species and cultivars, but they turned out to be legion. My main interest centred on the Vernales section of the genus Primula, which includes our native primroses, cowslips and oxlips. I raised thousands of their hybrid seedlings; some were the result of deliberate crosses, but most of them were open-pollinated foundlings freely produced by this most promiscuous of garden flowers.

I had it in mind that, by crossing super-hardy species such as the Alpine oxlip P. elatior with the Caucasian P. juliae, I might breed a garden-worthy strain that would flourish in such climates as Ontario and the American Midwest and so make my fortune.

The NCCPG was keen that its collection holders should study their plants and make their own contribution to horticultural literature. We soon discovered, however, that so many brilliant botanists and gardeners had worked with the genus that we’d never be able to add to the existing corpus of knowledge.