Scottish Natives

[Susan Band]

Yesterday was such a lovely day here we met up with Julia and took a trip to Ben Lawers to look at the Saxifraga oppositifolia in flower. All the hill tops were covered in snow and there was a freezing wind but luckily you could just about photograph the plants from the car. Stopped of at cluny gardens on the way, Primula sonchifolia was flowering.

[mark smyth]

That Primula is a British native!?

[Susan Band]

Sorry Mark, I just added it since we saw it at Cluny, it is chinese

[Paul T]

That Primula is stunning.  Beautiful!!

[Luc Gilgemyn]

Beautiful Saxes Susan !

[mark smyth]

well, I want it!

[David Nicholson]

Primula sonchifolia-Ohhhhhhhhh! But perhaps not in my climate?

[Maggi Young]

Primula sonchifolia prefers a cool, dampish life, David.... sorry!   Doesn't even do very well here with us nowadays   Which it really pains me to say on a day when I have been noting such a lot of frost and wind damage on plants.... hardly seems like too warm and dry a place right at this minute

[TC]

To those who don't know, Cluny gardens hold the asiatic primula collection and is well worth a visit in Spring.  It's about time I paid it a visit again.  The Sonchifolias were growing beside a steep burn.  I was told that this was the favoured position because if there was any summer heat, the burn had its own micro climate which kept them cool.  I have managed to grow and flower them in a shaded part of my garden in Ayr, but they succumbed to a period of unusually high temperatures for here - 27c - and then the dreaded vine weevil.   I am pretty sure that they could be grown in N. Ireland in a suitable location.  I remember buying one from Cluny along with some seed but I do not know if they still sell plants.