Seneca Hill Perennials

Primula, Barnhaven Cowichans, Garnet

Barnhaven's description: "Garnet, black garnet and ruby shades."

Primula, Barnhaven Cowichans, Yellow

Barnhaven's description: "Newest of the Cowichans. Yellow shades over bronzed foliage. Rather shorter in growth and smaller in flower than the others, but prodigious with its blooms and exceedingly pretty."

Primula, Barnhaven juliana, 'Fireflies'

Barnhaven's description: "Riveting red polyanthus, all glitter and smoulder, from bright sealing wax red to the sultriest deep crimson. Beautiful plants, many with bronze foliage."

Primula, Barnhaven juliana, 'Vera Maud'

Barnhaven's description: "A delicate shell pink juliana edged with a deeper pink and with dark compact leaves. These delightful plants have been stopping people in their tracks in our nursery and at last we can offer seeds. Early, and with very sturdy stalks."

Primula, Barnhaven polyanthus, 'Daybreak'

Barnhaven's description: "Opalescent mother of pearl and dark stemmed whites, often flushed or veined with apricot or rose pink. Most have bronzed foliage."

Primula, Barnhaven polyanthus, 'Grand Canyon'

Barnhaven's description: "Copper, bronze, tile red, rust, tangerine and old gold. Glint of the sun on desert rocks."

Primula, Barnhaven polyanthus, 'Muted Victorians'

Barnhaven's description: "Exotica in lavender, violet, blue or buff, smoked with gray or frosted with sepia. Slightly taller than average."

Primula, Barnhaven polyanthus, 'Paris '90'

Barnhaven's description: "Whites and creams with a blue picotee edge and/or reverse, and blues and mauves suffused on a white ground."

Primula, Barnhaven polyanthus, 'Reverie'

Barnhaven's description: "A ripple of butterfly and powder blues, each flower illuminated by a small, precision stamped yellow or orange star."

Primula, Barnhaven polyanthus, 'Striped Victorians'

Barnhaven's description: "Predominantly blue and violet with cream, dusky pink and smoky peony shades, all veined and striped like Japanese irises."

Primula, candelabra type, North Hill strain

Thanks to the generosity of Joe Eck and Wayne Winterrowd, we are able to offer plants of the incomparable North Hill strain of candelabra primrose. The parents form a gorgeous swarm in deep oozy mud at the base of a steep hill at North Hill, flaunting flowers in shades ranging from cream and lemon yellow through peach and tangerine to deep red-orange and even pink. In our gardens here, we notice that the North Hill strain covers a much broader color range than does our colony of the VanDusen strain, though this may be becuase our original seed of the latter did not cover the full possible range. Our photo is of the VanDusen hybrid strain.

Primula, candelabra type, VanDusen hybrids

As far as we know, this strain and the preceding derive from a comparable mix of species, but perhaps because we had a narrower color range to begin with, our plants of this strain produce seedlings in the gold-peach-orange-burnt orange range, and do not venture towards cream, yellow or pink. If you want your colors confined a bit, this strain's for you; if you like them a little more flamboyant and less predictable, head for the North Hill strain.

Primula, gold- and silver-laced

A delightful old-fashioned polyantha primrose strain in which the mahogany-red flowers are edged with with gold or silver. These descend from both silver- and gold-edged parents, so we cannot predict which you'll get.

Primula, polyanthus types, garden mix

Seedlings from a wide array of select garden plants, with much more variation than you see in our photo. Some of these seedlings have already bloomed, and our impression is that while most are polyanthus types, a few are acaulis or vulgaris types (the flowers arising singly from the basal rosette). The flower types range from open (the majority) through a few throwbacks to the P. veris ancestor (more narrow, bell-like flowers), and in color from creamy white through shades of yellow to oranges and reds, with the odd pink or magenta here and there. We have no blues or purples among the parents, and none have appeared in the offspring.

Primula sieboldii 'Chubby One'

One of our earliest selections, with round, fimbriated flowers clustered tightly in an unusually compact round umbel. The petals overlap each other and are white on the face and pink on the reverse.

Primula sieboldii 'Drag Queen' - NEW INTRODUCTION

OK, you're looking at that cultivar name and saying "are they nuts?" So we will tell you the whole story. For the several years that this seedling has grown in the garden, it has gone by the "kennel name" 'Drag Queen', because its lilac and white flowers are frilly, flouncy and over the top. When we decided to propagate and sell it, the question naturally came up as to whether this was a usable name. We consulted our dear friend Jim, who functions as our advisor on things PC, and his reply was "sure, there's nothing derogatory about the name - no problem there. But is the plant a male or a female?" Jim, you see, understands primroses as well as drag queens, and knows that they bloom either as pins (females, loosely speaking) or thrums (males, ditto). Well, DQ turned out to be a pin, so we thought "oops - gotta find a different name." But then we thought about it, and realized that hey, it's the 21st century; she can be whatever she wants to be! And so she is. And she's a really good P. sieboldii, too.

Primula sieboldii 'New Snow'

In this Seneca Hill selection the flowers are large and pure white, with the end of each petal deeply cleft. For quiet elegance, this one is hard to beat.

Primula sieboldii 'Seneca Star'

Our most recent introduction before 'Drag Queen', this plant has everything: vigor, strong flowering stems, and large, fimbriated deep pink flowers with white central stars.

Primula sieboldii 'Wildfire'

Another of our selections, with moderate-sized fimbriated deep pink flowers. What really captures our hearts, though, are its amazing profligacy of bloom and unsually rapid growth rate - hence the name.

Primula x pubescens 'Cherry Popsicle'

A chance seedling we've grown for years, and decided to propagate (vegetatively) because the flowers are such an irresistible red with a light yellow eye. The red reminds us of cherry popsicles, therefore youth, which is a cheery thought, and that's why we named it as we did. A compact grower, suitable for the rock garden.

Primula x pubescens, mixed

We find garden auriculas fairly irresistible, and also a bit challenging, as with their alpine heritage what they really like is a sunny spot with moist free-draining soil - easier to manage if you live below a melting snow pack than if you live, say, in New Jersey. They are not fond of hot muggy summer weather. They do, however, have wonderful flowers, in jewel-like colors (with occasional lapses into brownish shades, it must be admitted), and we never get over the thrill of seeing what emerges. As of this writing, these plants are unbloomed, so we'll have to wait and be surprised. We suggest planting them out as early in spring as you can, to allow them to get well established before summer moves in.

Prosartes lanuginosa (Disporum lanuginosum)

A quietly elegant understory plant, native throughout most of the eastern US, Yellow Fairbells forms slowly spreading colonies of y-shaped stems, each holding aloft pairs of gracefully upfolded, deeply veined leaves leaves. The small yellowish-green flowers are followed by green berries which turn red as the foliage yellows in fall.

Pycnanthemum flexuosum

Through the generosity of Alistair Glen of Growing Wild Nursery in North Carolina, we are able to offer this unusual mostly-coastal species, collected in Pender Co., NC. Lest you think "oh, P. flexuosum is common - everyone sells it" - the fact is that the name gets misapplied in commerce to other more common species, especially P. tenuifolium (Slender Mountain Mint). P. flexuosum is much more attractive in bloom than any other pycnanthemum we've seen: its inflorescences are composed of densely clustered flowers, the calyces of which have long stiff white threadlike apices that protrude well above the flowers themselves and give the plant the appearance of being topped with white sea anemones. This is a thoroughly engaging plant. Photo copyright Alistair Glen, used with permission.