The range of indoor primroses allows you to choose between compact or lush plants with flowers of various colors. Blooms in winter or spring primrose stemless… Graceful mini stars of delicate primrose softish bloom on huge bushes – up to 45 cm. Compact primrose in pots looks like mini-bouquets. Very lush bushes with flowers up to 7 cm primrose reverse conical… But mistakes in growing all primroses, as well as care features, are similar. This plant loves coolness, but not so capricious that, with diligence and attention, great difficulties arise with it. Let’s take a closer look at the main mistakes that can be made when growing primroses in rooms.
10 mistakes when growing primroses in rooms
1. Necessary conditions have not been created
Primrose bushes in mini-pots fill the counters. But only those who will keep the plant cool during flowering and will provide regular care without interruptions with watering will be able to admire their long flowering.
Primrose is not the best candidate for interior decoration inside rooms. You should not consider it a “living bouquet” that can be used to decorate a coffee table, because it is extremely light-requiring.
2. Little sun
Primrose is well tolerated with shading in gardens. In the rooms, even on the windowsills, she is not always comfortable – only on the western or partially western windows, in extreme cases – on the eastern ones. The primrose endures the direct sun only in the early morning or evening, on the southern window it suffers from the heat and “burns”. But on the northern side it can quickly turn pale and “fall apart”, stretching out from lack of light.
3. Insufficient air humidity
Despite their not at all tropical origin, primroses love high air humidity. They do not need 70-85%, but medium to medium-high values will allow the plant to maintain the brightness of flowers and leaves. It is impossible to increase the humidity by spraying, only humidifiers or pallets with wet expanded clay, moss, pebbles are suitable.
You can increase the humidity for primroses only with humidifiers or pallets with wet expanded clay, moss, pebbles
4. Accommodation in warm rooms
Moving into pots, primroses do not lose their cold resistance and prefer to bloom in the cool. Even if the bushes are then thrown away, you should not expose them in the usual conditions of living rooms. During flowering, primroses will prefer a temperature of 10 to 12 degrees, with a maximum maximum of 15 degrees. Without coolness, do not be surprised that the primrose will quickly fade.
Perennial primroses should prepare for flowering in the same temperatures, but after flowering and in summer they feel good in warmth and heat (the bushes should be taken out to the balcony or garden). If you keep the primrose at a temperature of about 10 degrees before flowering for a month, you can achieve a more vigorous flowering.
5. Excessive watering
Primroses love regular watering and are sensitive to substrate drying out. But excessive moisture is not for them either. At least in the pot format, they do not tolerate overflows well. To reduce the risk of rotting and keep the roots healthy, it is better to dry the soil in the upper layer between waterings and immediately drain the water that is released into the trays. For the winter, the substrate is dried more, watering the plants is not so abundant.
6. Untimely start of feeding
Primroses are fed like any flowering houseplant, even if discarded after flowering. Of course, in this case, primroses can do without feeding at all, but it will be difficult to count on long-term flowering.
Top dressing begins when the first buds appear. In order not to cause too rapid growth and not overfeed the plants, use a halved concentration of fertilizers every 2 weeks. Top dressing is completed with the end of summer growth in perennials and flowering in discarded primroses.
For indoor primroses, fertilizers for flowering crops are better suited.
Read more about growing soft primrose in the article 5 indoor plants with the most massive inflorescences.
7. Lack of fresh air
Primrose loves airing. Moreover, it is the lack of access to fresh air that most often leads to the defeat of the plant by diseases and pests. At the same time, drafts and sudden changes are not the best option; it is better to protect plants from changes in content. But airing the rooms should be regular, frequent, regardless of the temperature of the content. The plant prefers to spend summer in the fresh air.
Primrose loves airing
8. Incorrect planting and inappropriate substrate
Primroses, if they are simply planned to be thrown away or transplanted into the garden after flowering, should not be disturbed at all. Perennials are transplanted annually, in early spring.
Plants often, after purchase, mistakenly rush to transplant into new, high-quality soil, believing that the substrate in which the primrose grew before the purchase is somewhat defective. But it is better not to disturb flowering plants at all, not forgetting that primroses also require a standard quarantine period and stability of conditions without unnecessary stress.
Transplanting should be carried out only in emergency conditions, when the primrose has outgrown the pot so much that there is no other way out, or when the soil, indeed, seems to be compacted, is in poor moldy condition (it is better to check the quality of the substrate before purchase, not after it).
If the plant is transplanted, you need to try not to contact the roots and try to maintain the level of the previous planting, in no case plunging deeper for greater decorativeness. Depth planting is the main reason the plant dies.
Primrose prefers light, drained and nutritious, versatile soil with loosening additives. And a high drainage layer.
Read also our article 7 sunniest plants for winter interior.
9. Gray rot is dangerous!
On primroses, patches of gray rot — wet, prominent against the lush greenery — are just as common as root rot. Botrytis lesions are very serious and often destroy the entire plant. Rot appears on primroses in three cases:
- If the plant is watered incorrectly, allowing constant dampness and stagnation of water in the pallets. When the roots of primrose decay, they begin to wither, often lesions can be seen at the base of the rosettes. But the main sign is an unpleasant mold smell from the substrate and wet soil in the upper layer.
- If the primroses are planted too deep, the center of the rosettes will begin to die. It is easy to recognize botrytis in this case by the darkening and softening of the affected tissues.
- Gray rot on leaves most often appears with poor ventilation, in the shade, in very intense heat, when primrose is heavily dusty or kept in tropical conditions with excess air humidity. Although botrytis can also be caused by inaccurate watering on pubescent leaves.
It is necessary to fight botrytis in the same way – removing the affected leaves, trying to adjust the care, increasing ventilation and lowering the temperature to a comfortable one for primroses. But if the plants are badly affected, only an emergency transplant with fungicide treatment (at least copper chloride) will help to save them.
Primrose leaves should be inspected regularly
10. Pests cannot be ignored
Regular inspections of primrose leaves should not be neglected. After all, it is they that allow you to quickly and effectively stop the spread of pests. On the pubescent leaves of the primrose and its dense peduncles, insects spread quickly and sometimes imperceptibly. It is worth missing the beginning of the infection a little and it will not be easy to cope with them. Moreover, primroses very quickly die precisely from the invasion of insects.
For primroses, red spider mites and thrips are especially dangerous. Recognizing pests on primroses is easy:
- aphid is indicated by twisting of flowers and leaves, deformation, delayed flowering, in a neglected state – defeat by a sooty fungus;
- red spider mites are easily recognizable by whitish bloom and thinnest cobwebs; but not only, because yellow spots quickly spread on the affected leaves, and then they begin to dry out and fall off;
- thrips can be spotted by the irregular dry mosaic patterns that whiten on the leaves, like a fancy silver mosaic.
When buying a beautiful blooming primrose, special attention should be paid to the inspection of the leaves of the plant. This plant is a true favorite of aphids and other insects. And infected primroses so often hit the shelves that there is always a risk of buying an unhealthy plant. In this sense, primroses should be treated as if they were summer seedlings – as a potential source of infection for the entire home collection. And be sure to quarantine the plant. Isolation for a 7-14 day period will help identify any problems.
