Hardiness zones
Sunset All (seasonally)
USDA All (seasonally)
Landscape Use: Landscape annual for the winter season in Phoenix, cool season bedding or edging plant, mesic landscapes, colorful accent.
Form & Character: Herbaceous perennial, diminuative, low, rosetting, formal, colorful, cheerful.
Growth Habit: Evergreen, basally clumping less that 6" except when in flower.
Foliage/Texture: Basally rossetting, indivdual leaves are 2" to 5" in length and 1" to 2" wide. Leaf margins are coarsely serrated (creanate to dentate), leaf veins are prominent, occassionally pubescent; medium coarse texture.
Flowers & Fruits: The flowers are 1" to 2" in diameter, borne singly on a slender elongated stem. The flowers are hermaphrodite. Flower colors are various raning from white, pale yellow, red, or purple. Fruit are a capsule which opens by valves to release the small black seeds.
Seasonal Color: Depending on cultivar and subspecies hybrid, there are many flower colors during winter and early spring.
Temperature: Common primrose grows best if the temperature range is between 35oF and 80oF, intolerant of heat.
Light: Partial shade best
Soil: In Phoenix, common primrose requires a rich organic amended soil with acidifiying fertilizers added on a regular basis.
Watering: Water abundantly to keep soil moist.
Pruning: None
Propagation: Seed
Disease and pests: Crown rot if planted too deep and root rot if soils are poorly drained.
Additional comments: Common primrose has been cultivated horticulturally for a long time. In Europe there are few native plantings remain because of over harvesting and over collecting of seed. Numerous cultivars exist for garden planting most of which have been selected from the subspecies sibthorpii or hybrids between subspecies. Both flowers and leaves are edible, the flavor ranging between mild lettuce and more bitter salad greens.