Hits and Misses - part 1 Evening primroses

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When we first came into the house there were a number of dead triffids all over the garden – tall stately and very attractive to the goldfinches. All of which was rather intriguing.

It took a bit of sleuthing to realise that these were in fact the skeletons of evening primroses, but thereafter I set out on an evening primrose seedling hunt and did a lot of transplanting, not always very successfully.

Evening primrose seedlings have long green leaves from a central rosette and, tellingly, a white translucent stripe down the centre and along some of the other veins which is very useful for identification. They also have a tap root which is why I think some of my transplants were less than successful. The best ones had a lot of soil left around them – dividing plantlets that were close was more difficult.

Still the garden has a number that have survived even if not always in the right places. The ones that I am most pleased with though are the ones that have self seeded in the cracks in pavings.

This has made them branch – creating a stockier, sturdier plant – and seemingly not doing much damage to the height.

This one is the tallest – perhaps 4 foot and it is quite happy in an area that was plunged in gloom during the winter – though it gets a reasonable amount of sun in the summer.

The plants for next year are already turning up around the garden which will make mulching easier in autumn I think – it also suggests that perhaps the seed needs a cold spell before it all germinates: an investigation is needed!

I haven’t had them before and think they are lovely.

The translucency of the petals is lovely – though my nose is not picking up much scent.

As you can see from this final one the plant also survives a fair deal of competition for water and resources – this one on the left is nestling in between a rampant perennial sweetpea, phygelia, sunflowers and whatever the pretty orange stuff is in front (answers would be really helpful)

• 7 Jul, 2010
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