The Primrose Path

THE NURSERY
The Primrose Path has introduced many new plants in the last 20 years. The owner, Charles Oliver, received the Marcel LePiniec Award for new plant introductions from the North American Rock Garden Society in 1998. Our plants are being marketed by licensed producers such as Blooms of Bressingham, Gootjes-AllPlant, CNB, Walters Gardens, B & B Laboratories, PhytaCell Technology, North Creek Nurseries, and others. We are located in southwestern Pennsylvania, a region that combines extremes of heat and cold with unreliable summer rainfall and winter snow. Our plant introductions have had to cope with northeastern winters and summers. Our customers report superior survival of potted plants of our selected varieties wintered outside.

OUR BREEDING AND SELECTION PROGRAM
Our heuchera breeding program has included some little-known eastern US forms that combine extreme drought and cold tolerance with the biggest flowers in the genus. Our new hybrid heucheras have showy flowers as well as gorgeous foliage. The Petite heucheras are miniature forms suited to small gardens and containers. 'Silver Scrolls' and its relatives and 'Frosted Violet' bring a new look to heucheras and brighten shade gardens with their colorful, silvery leaves.

Our early crosses with tiarella are the stock from which nearly all the new hybrids on the market have been derived. Our cultivars have superior vigor as well as striking foliage form and coloration. 'Elizabeth Oliver' is among the most widely-sold tiarellas in the US.

We are the breeders of Heucherella 'Quicksilver,' one of the most vigorous and showy heucherellas on the market, and, we believe, one of the very best new shade plants of the last decade.

PROPAGATION AT THE PRIMROSE PATH
The plants we offer are propagated by tissue culture in our lab. We are the primary source for many of our plants and the exclusive source for some of our newest introductions. Charles and Martha Oliver and Regina Birchem manage the laboratory, which serves as a facility both for the production of our plants and for the development of propagation techniques for new plant introductions, as well as the basic source of breeder-approved propagation stock.