Hi, my name is Pam Eveleigh and I am a primula and alpine gardening enthusiast living in Calgary, Canada. I am a founding member of the Calgary Rock and Alpine Garden Society (CRAGS) and I have served on the Board of Directors for the American Primrose Society.

My interests center around hiking, mountaineering, photography and travel with my husband and two boys. The alpine flowers that I noticed and photographed as a child while hiking with my own parents, led me to an interest in alpine gardening. More on my passion for photography can be found here.

Primula World started as a response to my own need.  I finally admitted I was addicted to primulas when I could not longer deny that most of my seed selections were primulas and that I had quite a collection of them in the garden. Every time a seed list came out, I was searching for primula pictures in books to see what the plants on offer looked like. In 2000, I though to computerize this search by scanning Primula pictures onto my computer. I realized that this would be a useful tool for other gardeners, so Primula World was born. Since that time I have had lots of support from many primula enthusiasts and my interest has gone even deeper into the detailed identification of primulas.

Most of my plants are grown from seed obtained from seed exchanges and wild seed collecting expeditions. All my plants are grown in the garden, including traditional alpine-house species like P. allionii. For crevice and raised beds, I use a local black slate rock, called "Rundle rock", tufa and some sandstone. Though I have over 30 small hypertufa troughs, best results are obtained with fish box troughs in my dry climate. You can learn more about how I grow primulas here.

Calgary has an undeserved reputation as a challenging gardening climate. Detailed weather statistics for Calgary can be found here, but generally we have intense sunshine and low humidity. In summer we have cool nights that the plants love and in winter we contend with Chinooks that the plants hate. Chinooks are warm winds that can evaporate snow cover in a day and raise the temperature 30˚C in a few hours. To see a picture of the distinctive Chinook arch, click here.

Here are some Primula species that I grow:

algida, allionii, albenensis, alpicola, angustifolia, auricula, auriculata, calderiana, capitata, chionantha, clusiana, cortusoides, cusickiana, denticulata, deorum, dryadifolia, elatior, eximia, fasciculata, glaucescens, halleri, hirsuta, incana, integrifolia, involucrata, japonica, juliae, kisoana, kitaibeliana, latifolia, longipes, luteola, macrophylla, magellanica, marginata, maximowiczii, minima, mistassinica, modesta, mollis, moupinensis, nivalis, obtusifolia, palmata, pamirica, parryi, polyneura, pulchella, rosea, rusbyi, scandinavica, scotica, sharmae, sieboldii, sikkimensis, spectabilis, specuicola, suffrutescens, tosaensis, turkestanica, tyrolensis, veris, vialii, warshenewskiana, wulfeniana, zambalensis ... and more!

Back to top

Thank you for visiting Primula World. If you have any questions or suggestions, please feel free to send them to me. I would be happy to answer them by e-mail.

Copyright Pam Eveleigh ©2008, All Rights Reserved