Primrose genetics

Some of the primroses that I grew from seed this year are now flowering. The seeds were collected from plants with red/yellow flowers, and all the flowers on the new generation are purple/yellow as shown below...


My experience with primrose propagation is that seed from plants with yellow flowers...


grow into plants that have red/yellow flowers...


and, as discussed above, seeds from red/yellow plants give rise to purple/yellow-flowered plants. I didn't know that I would get purple/yellow flowers, I'm a little disappointed that I did because purple doesn't show up very well on gloomy days.

Anyway, next year I'll try sowing seed from the purple flowers.

BTW, because the foxes knocked over the pot in which I was growing seed from a blue-flowered primrose, I think I only have two plants from blue seed. Neither of them have flowered yet, so I'm eagerly awaiting to learn what colour they'll be.

New compost bin

My new composter was delivered today. In previous years I have stopped putting waste into the original composter in October (except for leaves which I continue to add), then turn the compost once a month so that it's ready for use in May.

I continued to put any suitable waste into a trench, covered with a sheet of plastic, until May when I empty the composter and transfer the contents of the trench into the composter.In addition to assisting the composting process, the plastic stops pieces of cardboard and paper from blowing around.

However, this year the foxes have chewed through the plastic and pulled off the wire netting which I thought would keep them off, so I decided to buy another composter.