PlantSowGrow
How to plant and care for Cowslip
Primula veris
🌸 Flower
🔁 Perennial
Nodding clusters of sweetly scented, golden-yellow flowers in April and May. A native perennial for meadows, banks and the front of the border.
When to plant and care for it
JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Flowers
Timed for a typical UK garden (last frost mid-April). The app uses your own town's frost dates.
Growing Cowslip: what it needs
- Light
- Part shade · 6+ hours a day
- Watering
- Water well until established, then in dry spells
- Soil
- Any, preferably limy, soil
- Spacing
- 20 cm
- Height
- 20 cm
- In pots
- Grows well in containers
- Feeding
- No feeding needed
- Hardiness
- USDA zones 3–8
Step by step
- On planting day
Plant
Plant at the same depth as it was in its pot, 20 cm apart, and firm in.
- 0–1 days after “Plant”
Water In Well
Give a full can of water, then keep moist for the first few weeks while roots establish.
- 7–14 days after “Water In Well”
Mulch Around the Base
Spread 5 cm of compost or bark around the plant, keeping it off the stems.
Every year
- AprilIn Flower
Scented yellow flowers — an early food for bees.
- JuneDivide Big Clumps
After flowering, lift and split crowded clumps to make more plants.
More flowers to grow
Photo: Kristian Peters -- Fabelfroh 15:10, 12 May 2007 (UTC) / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)
