Prime time for primula
For those of you who grow primroses, polyanthus or cowslips, this is a good time to lift and divide mature or ageing plants. If you do that every second or third year, your primulas, pictured, will stay young, healthy and full of flower.
When the plants have almost finished flowering, use a fork to dig them out of the ground.
remove any spent flower stems and shake off as much of the soil as you can.
As the plants’ rhizomes become easy to see, gently break some of those off or cut them away with a knife.
Find and keep rhizomes which have a few healthy roots plus a single rosette of leaves at one end.
Plant them individually, either in pots with good quality growing medium, or in a sheltered and weedfree part of the ground. They’ll be small, so mark where they are.
Splitting primulas now gives those tiny offshoots an entire growing season to develop into large, healthy plants.
Those will be perfect for planting out next autumn for a super spring show in 2023.