Flower of the Week / 今週の花

primula vulgaris

Primrose

Today, I'm gonna introduce you all to three different genus of plants called primula or primrose as they are commonly known.These primroses bloom in the early spring in most places. They're a colorful, happy looking flowers. Primroses, if you didn't know, were extremely popular in the 19th century. As the industrial revolution occurred, people came from the country to the city to work in great big smokey factories and pollution became, kind of an everyday event in everybody's lives. The primrose that they brought from the country withstood the soot and the dirt of the city life and they became a very popular flower.
 

auricula

Just as tulips were know as the flower that drove men mad and orchids turned men into thieves, primroses turned queen Victoria into a romantic. She gave primrose wreaths to everyone including her prime minister Disraeli. As they were hybridized and glorified, the primrose took on a very big stature. Nowadays, they're common, they're extremely inexpensive, a little primula vulgaris will cost anywhere from ¥70 to ¥150 at the grocery store. But as you get into the rarer types of primroses, like the very beautiful primula auricula and the drumstick primrose, you can expect to pay up to ¥1300. The primula auricula was developed in the 19th century and they were even made into porcelain because of it's beauty.

Primrose, by the way, means primus in Latin. It comes from that word, which means first and from the Italian, primarossa, which means first rose. They're not really roses, but I guess if you look at them and think flower, than rossa is a good enough name for them.
 

denticulata

The drumstick primrose, aka primula denticulata is beautiful and the tall head kind of wave in the breeze and the leaves are not the real furry leaves, but they're nicely articulated on the edge a little bit of a sew-tooth edge.

Make sure you plant primroses in nice organic soil, in shade and make sure you give them plenty of water. And the primroses with grow and thrive and next year, they'll be more primroses all around the area you've planted.