An opportunity for one of our breeders to give some background to their subject!

Howard is one of our main Primula breeders, based in Norwich but a born and bred Yorkshireman (and a Leeds United fan), his background has been on various nurseries and in seed production at one of the UK's largest seed breeders but now has his own nursery and is breeding in mainly Primula and producing the seed of his full range of varieties

He has a fascination with the colour Black and been working hard to bring this colour into Primula

"My background is really in seed production and not genetics I still get very excited when I see the potential in plants to develop them into something special"

"This was certainly the case with the variety 'Midnight', I brought the parent material together some six years ago now, Year on Year I have worked on making improvements in the plant habit and uniformity as well as trying to get a flower colour as Black as I can"

"My patience was rewarded when BrilliantGardens.com felt it was ready to hit the market, but don't worry it doesn't stop there, work continues on this variety just as it does on many others making small but significant improvements"

"The purist may well say I'm stretching things a bit calling in Black, however I do feel it is as Black as many other so called Black flowered species and it will continue to improve as time goes on"

"I'm sure the 'The Black Flower Society' would be only too pleased with it!"

"In fact on a recent visit to one of the main BrilliantGardens.com growers it was nice to hear them singing the praises of Midnight, its colour and uniformity"

"In fact it was so good pretty well all the plants had been despatched"

"You can be sure we will see even more improvements to 'Midnight' along with another obsession of mine developing a Green flowered Primula"

"The starting point is there with 'Greensleeves' however in this years trials I have what I hope (fingers crossed) will be some very Green flowered types"