The Japanese primrose (Primula japonica, candelabra) is about to bloom in the north-east US.  Flowers all summer long.

 

The last garden planted by Henry Francis du Pont (1880-1969, American) at Winterthur, Delaware, was planted in a quarry with a natural spring.

 

The Japanese primrose populates the quarry bed beneath the shade of bushes which include azalea and the lily-of-the valley bush (Andromeda japonica).

 

 

 

The Quarry Garden, Winterthur, Delaware.  

 

 

 

Having admired this primrose in the Quarry Garden, the proprietor of Mt. Cuba, Hockessin, Delaware,  Pamela Lammot du Pont Copeland (1906-2001, American) seeded a small area around a pond at Mt. Cuba with the same plant. 

 

The Japanese primrose is the only non-native plant maintained at Mt. Cuba, a park and garden of flora native to the Appalachian Piedmont.

 

 

 

 

Japanese primrose, Mt. Cuba, Delaware, from whose website this photo

 

 

 

 

These primroses and their spectacular coronae are out of bounds to us this year.

 

As though there is a fear that they could infect us.

 

And, of course, year after year they have infected me with their delicate beauty, to my great good fortune.