Thanks esh. Those plants are along a golf course waterway, and unaccessible to non-golfers after 7:00 am. I returned there this morning, but was unable to see flower details (even with a 10x lens), because the morning dew degraded the flowers. So I dug a clump and replanted them at home. I should know in a day or two whether these plants are Mentha pulegium, or Hedeoma pulegioides. The later is more likely in our area, but usually has light blue flowers instead of the pink ones shown in the photos. The stems were square (apparently typical for both species), and crushed leaves had a strong, non-minty, somewhat unpleasant aroma. I'll post back after I check stamen numbers to confirm genus. Thanks for pointing me in the right direction.

Hi Cath, Yep, primula do need rotating around and, like many plants, will not tolerate being planted in the same place (wallflowers are notorious for this). However, they are really easily to divide - I split a pot of auriculas (somewhat brutally) last year into 37 offsets -I have not yet decided what to do with 37 identical pots of auriculas apart from using them as some sort of edging. The common primrose really needs to be divided every 3-4 years as they do eventually get really congested. Sowing from seed is easy when the seeds are fresh and green - they will germinate within a couple of weeks. Once the seed has dried out and gone into dormancy, it can be a different ballgame indeed, requiring exact conditions of chilling and warming to germinate.....and the some of the asian primroses such as P.secundiflora are really tricksy. Still, as one of the most desired harbingers of spring, we must have them. The scent of a posy of freshly picked primroses wins over any rose, in my book. Many times over the long and dreary winter, the occasional sniff of a single fugitive auricula was the only thing which kept my spirit intact. Yeah, Stopshops, once the plants start to become an onerous duty instead of a reviving pleasure, it is also time to re-examine our priorities. One of my poorer decisions was to give up social work in order to become a full-time gardener - I very nearly lost the thing I loved and rapidly parlayed my energy into the more lucrative task of landscaping: although I didn't exactly leap for joy while humping yet another load of sand into the cement-mixer, I never had to gnash my teeth in rage at yet another insane demand for tropical planting themes - in cold wet Blighty!

Trospero: "I have a R. arkansana grown from seed that flowers in 3 or 4 flushes per growing season; the final one usually in early October. In breeding, this trait vanishes when crossed with modern roses of any kind. I never did find a mate for it that passed on this reblooming trait. It would likely require several generations of careful selection, but I gave up breeding before I could pursue that idea." My readings have led me to the conclusion that one can't get juvenile rebloom out of a native without multiple generations, as you say, and that if one wants to exceed 50% native (and thus have a good shot at rose rosette resistance, among other things), it would balloon into a huge project. I was thinking about it differently. Rather than trying to mix some native into garden roses, I was wondering how good of a garden rose could be made out of natives. Though your White Rabbit arkansana (or my reblooming californica or palustris) would be incompatible with chinensis rebloom, they might not be with each others', or with that of other sorts of extended bloomers and adult rebloomers (spithamea, pomifera/borissovae, damascena, musk, banksia, etc.) Palustris x virginiana blooms twice, as does setigera x gallica, if Baltimore Belle's ancestry is to be believed, so it doesn't seem like an impossible goal. Basically I'm just chewing on the problem of how to breed out the suckering without losing what they already have going for them, including rebloom. Your arkansana might not be too bad that way, but californica can eat a yard pretty quickly. I could just graft native rebloomers onto setigera rootstock and be done with it -- I admit I have some setigera seeds in the fridge, and am considering trying it -- but that seems more like a workaround than an ideal solution. The non-chinensis rebloom/extended bloom mechanisms are just so poorly explored it's hard to guess what breeding approach might solve the suckering without killing the blooming season. In a way, it's similar to the question I face using Nightmoss as breeding stock. Neither of its parents rebloom, and it doesn't rebloom, but a seedling of it does, and a cross of it with a flush-blooming found rose does. Those two comprise all of its known progeny. Nuits de Young and Tuscany Superb have produced one reblooming offspring each, but their single blooming progeny are far more common. So what's lurking in Nightmoss, is it damascena rebloom, chinensis rebloom, the rare but undeniable gallica rebloom? Two or more of the above? Mama Luymans (Gruss an Teplitz x Aimable Rouge) reblooms, though Aimable Rouge doesn't look chinensis, and seems too old to contain any. Baltimore Belle, Stanwell Perpetual, Paula Vapelle, and a number of other chinensis-free rebloomers, shouldn't. If the Portland Rose is really an F1 of gallica x damask, it shouldn't. For that matter, musk x gallica shouldn't, nor should its offspring R. damascena. More to the point, my palustris has stipules that are a little wide for the species, and its prickles aren't too hooked, but I still have no clue why it's in bloom in middle of November. I guess there's nothing more that I can do, than to place my bets on certain combinations, and see what happens. Like, if I tried Souvenir de Brod x Nightmoss, I suspect I might get some rebloomers in the batch, but I couldn't tell you what kind(s) of rebloom it would be, why it had it/them, or how to extend the result to other crosses. Maybe that's as good as it gets when you're out of the chinensis mainstream.

Hi, Sweet Pea. The GardenWeb site has a wonderfully useful database of plants, containing members' photos and comments. If you go to the link below, you'll discover that there are 6552 lilies in the database!! Click on the link, and scroll down until you see: --Search the HortiPlex Database: --Please enter a common name or a botanical name: In the space, type "lilium" and then whatever type or variety of lily you want to search. For example, if you type "lilium muscadet", it will take you to listings with that name. An icon of a camera means that there is at least one photo with the listing, and a "smiley face" means there are comments. Just click on "More info". The search also works for species lilies. You won't find all the lilies you're looking for (it all depends if someone has shared a photo), but it's a start! Happy researching!