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From time to time I get the urge to grow double primroses. I bought some seed of the Barnhaven Doubles a few years ago, and I keep raising them.
If I had the time and space, I would select out some colour strains, but in the meantime I just keep the best of them for the garden. Barnhaven Primroses say about their doubles: "Florence Bellis began working on the Barnhaven double primroses in the 1950’s after finding a few specks of pollen clinging to the petals of the old variety ‘Marie Crousse’, and this exciting adventure has continued ever since with each successor of Barnhaven. Double primroses don’t carry seed and have very little pollen and therefore necessitate a complicated breeding programme. Each crop takes 2 seasons of hand pollination to produce and then the proportion of double seedlings over the whole crop is roughly 25%. It is incredibly labour intensive but you should see our faces in the nursery when the first seedlings begin to flower… Probably the most rewarding part of our breeding work." |
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| 8th April 2007 | ||
