One thing which sets this blog apart from most other gardening blogs is my determination to keep it confined to plants I have grown here in my gardens (the home garden and my community garden plots). Almost every image which appears on this blog is of a plant growing in this garden. Almost every image, but not all. There are views of the local woodlands and some other images obviously not taken here, but overall I take a certain pride in the fact that what you see here is almost entirely my own.
Today I'm swallowing my pride: I didn't grow these primulas. They came from one of the local grocery stores where they were sold for the give-away price of three for five dollars. These primulas at that price are great value for the money: with care, they can bloom for week after week, as long as they are kept cold, cold as in above freezing but below 55-60 degrees Fahrenheit.
Other than that, the only challenge in their culture is keeping them watered. That lush succulent foliage and those bright blooms require a lot of water. Once they go into the cold frames (maybe tomorrow if the temperature gets above freezing by early afternoon) their water requirement lessens, but since they are in pots they are still very vulnerable to drying out. The smart thing to do is to remove them from the pots and plant them into the soil of the cold frame - that done, they practically take care of themselves as long as they remain cool.
Update February 13, 2015: they are still blooming freely. These were purchased at the end of December, so they have so far given a month and a half of bloom. And most of them show no sign of slowing down. They have taken well to cold frame life.
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