Primula juliae Wanda - Primrose

The primrose or Primula juliae 'Wanda' is an ancient variety of Caucasus Primrose that seduces with its hardiness, vigour, and its ability to quickly form beautiful dense carpets, flowering for a long period. It offers charming, small, scented flowers, purple with a yellow heart, sometimes in summer, as well as its young wavy leaves of a beautiful fresh green colour. Perennial, this small ground-covering plant is easy to place in borders, damp rockeries, on the edge of woodland, planted in humus-rich and moist soil.

The Primula Juliae 'Wanda' is a prolific and robust horticultural creation, resulting from the cross-breeding between Primula juliae and P. acaulis. P. juliae is a very small rhizomatous and stoloniferous wild species characterized by excellent hardiness, a very neat habit, and very beautiful dark and shiny foliage. Primroses belong to the primrose family.

The beautiful foliage of 'Wanda' develops in small rosettes on the ground, emerging from the underground rhizome, to form a slowly spreading carpet. The leaves, more or less evergreen, measuring 5 to 7 cm (2 to 3in) long, with a wavy and glossy appearance, are of a more or less dark green colour depending on the nature of the soil. In March-April, short floral stems appear, 10 cm (4in) tall, carrying clusters of fragrant flowers with smooth violet-purple petals and a small yellow heart surrounded by red. They are so numerous that they cover the foliage. This ground-covering primrose sometimes produces a few flowers during the summer, in very moist soil. It tolerates short periods of drought quite well.

The 'Wanda' primrose particularly thrives in humus-rich, constantly moist but well-drained soil, not too shaded, conditions that can be found in damp rockeries or rocky areas bordering a small waterfall. In borders or in containers on a balcony, this plant pairs well with hostas, forget-me-nots, peonies, or large comfreys. Primroses are perfect in borders, low flower beds under leafy cover, in rockeries and lawns, among snowdrops and violets.

The primroses in our gardens are almost all perennial, sometimes annual and rarely woody. Their cultivation can be either very easy or very difficult. Climate is often a determining factor for their survival; some species die if the summer temperature is too high, others if the winter is too wet or too cold, etc. It is a complex genus, which we have been cultivating for 25 years, but to understand the very different ways of living of all the rare species, you need to spend a lot of time with them and know that they do not forgive any mistakes. The ones in this catalog do not all offer the same degree of difficulty, but they can all be cultivated by a careful amateur. Some are easy to grow, others less so... it's up to you to choose the ones you think you can master!