Primula Sieboldii

by Elaine Malloy

Primula sieboldii (Japanese Sakurasoh) extends the spring show of primroses. Beautiful is its mass of color from mid-May to mid June before the rest of the garden awakens. Imagine the beauty of ‘Italian Lace’ or ‘White Lace’ in an exquisite stand of stunning, extremely lacy and pure white flowers. Sakurasoh means cherry blossom (sakura) and herb (soh). The blossoms of P. sieboldii replace the falling cherry blossoms faithfully extending each spring.

Primula sieboldii is a hardy and easy woodland plant with whorles of flowers displayed on slender stalks. Sieboldii go dormant in the heat of summer. Rather than establishing a “primrose bed” to keep track of them, they show off better when individually placed throughout the garden. Via its rhizome (root system) each plant will produce a larger and larger clump. They are spectacular in their early spring beauty.

Hostas, heuchera, epimediums and hellebores are among the great P sieboldii garden neighbors. They offer a permanent setting and their leaves also cover the sleeping beauties for the rest of each growing season. Hundreds of named clones are available. ‘Yubisugata’, ‘Kuisakgirl’, ‘Hana Taishoh’ among Japanese names; ‘Cotton Candy’, ‘Sweetie’ and ‘Blue Sky in the Morning’ are among the English named counterparts. Planting named varieties is one means of propagation and is easy as discussed above.

Growing P. sieboldii from seed is exciting and rewarding. The Heronswood Nursery Catalogue states: “...seedlings we have grown from a collection of named Sakurasoh in cultivation in this country (USA) have turned out to be sensational. For several weeks, I tried pulling those that I thought were the best out of the flats, to integrate into the garden, and finally gave up. I don’t have that much room!”
Sources for seeds include the American Primrose Society, North American Rock Garden Society, Barnhaven, American Sakurasoh Association, Scottish Rock Garden Club and the Alpine Garden Society seed lists. Angela Bradford writes that Barnhaven offers Winter Dreams, Pago Pago, Manakoora and Dancing Ladies, not named individuals, but strains that contain a number of forms. Winter Dreams offers pure white and Pago Pago is pink, both strains with smooth edges; fringe edged Manakoora are “blue”, mostly shades of lilac, but getting bluer. They also contain some bi-colors; white with lilac reverse. Dancing Ladies are pink bi-colors, streaked and splashed, both smooth and fringed. (1)

Sakurasoh even give reason for all out celebration! Paul Held, of the American Sakurasoh Society, experienced the spring festival in the city of Urawa, Japan. He writes: “The symbol of the city, sieboldii, are everywhere; on sides of buses, tiled walls and murals, clocks, kimonos on dancing ladies, and even man-hole covers. To add to the jubilation there was an inflatable arch with Sakurasoh Festival on it.

There was a rock group with blossoms on the scenery...huge gates...designed to control the flooding river were painted with beautiful abstract scenes of P. sieboldii.”(2) Revered in Japan for centuries, Japan’s only National Sakurasoh Preserve is Tajimagahara Field, open only for this one day festival.

P. sieboldii is truly a hardy plant, though not an alpine. Les Brake, of Willow, Alaska, wrote Paul that his Sieboldii survived when the earth froze ten feet deep after forty nights below zero and before any snow cover. Its wide north-Asian distribution, from eastern Siberia (Nertschink) just north of the Mongolian-Manchuria frontier, south-eastward through northern Manchuria, the northern extremity of Korea, Amurland, north of Vladivostok to Japan (southern Hokkaido, Honshu and Kyushu) attributes to the hardiness of P. sieboldii.(3)

Primula sieboldii was named in the West for European plantsman Philip von Siebold (1796-1866).(4) “Primula sieboldii was first introduced from Japanese gardens by von Siebold to his garden at Leiden, and from there to Messrs Veitch, London, in 1892.”

[Reprinted from the American Primrose Society Pictorial Dictionary of the Cultivated Species of the Genus Primula, 1948]

Sieboldii A beloved and immemorial ally from Japan, with its running masses of soft crumply oval leaves, scalloped and stalked; and its tall bare stems (2 1/4-12") opening wide heads of ( 2 –15”) beautiful flowers in almost every color and conceivable design of fringing segment. ... may be easily recognized from cortusoides, with which it has been confused, by the widely spreading lobes of the calyx. This is one of the most beloved and beautiful as well as one of the most hardy Primulas. Plants should have shelter from strong sun and rich, well drained soil, and be well marked as the rather hairy foliage appears early but by midsummer dies down and disappears. Easily propagated by seed or root cuttings.

Photo Credit: Orval Agee