Just want to mention the magnificence of the Cornish hedgerows around us at this time of year…more primroses than you could imagine plus ransom and wild garlic popping up and beginning to flower, and bluebells showing incipient growth. These together with flowering weeds of purple and white, always make our walks and bus or car trips a real pleasure…The iwalkcornwall site has this to say about primroses, and we confirm that we have seen the pale pink ones in all kinds of places, but usually singly….

‘Although most primroses tend to be pale yellow, in residential areas, extensive hybridisation occurs with pink and purple garden primulas to create all kinds of weird and wonderful mutants, with some even shaped like cowslips. However there is a pale pink variety of primrose (known as rhubarb and custard) that is thought to be a naturally-occurring variant of the pale yellow (rhubarb-free) version as it has been found miles away from any domestic plants.

During Victorian times, the building of railways allowed primrose flowers picked in the Westcountry to be on sale in London the next day. Picking was done on a large scale but eventually became unfashionable, being seen as environmentally destructive. However all the evidence gathered suggests as long as the flowers were picked and the plants were not dug up, the practice was sustainable’.

At home the garden is starting to put on a real show with our never-ending pink camellia by the house plus one at the bottom of the garden, and a deeper red and a double white, plus our own primroses as well as our pots of primroses and hyacinths and our two troughs with alpines which are doing very well indeed.