An array of primroses strikes the eye like a box of newly opened crayons. The colors are basic and pure. The blossoms are also basic, a design so simple it might have been invented by a child.

Primroses 4-inch pots for $1.29, the super-market sign proclaims. The spectacle of a hundred flats of primroses in bloom next to the market's asphalt parking lot becomes an unexpected site for an ode to joy. I feel like William Wordsworth did when he caught sight of the "host of daffodils."

I have a few primroses in my yard at home, but I am smitten by this year's new, fresh crop. I choose two pots, one with a plant with a bright yellow flower with a heart of dark gold. The other pot holds two plants - one has a deep maroon flower with a yellow center, the other plant a blossom of plain bright blue.

The primroses in my yard have bloomed bravely and sporadically all winter long. I planned to divide my plants, thereby expanding my primrose population at no extra cost and establishing my own primrose path that I could lead somebody down or better yet, somebody could lead me down. But alas, the deer who reside in the lower half of my yard decided that this year, primroses are on their menu - they didn't touch them last year. They daintily nibbled their destructive way through many of the plants in my unfenced front yard.

Primroses are tough, small and pretty, but tough in a very nice way, like some single mothers I have known. They are now sending up new shoots and some are full of buds preparing to flower again. The plants are smaller and more compact than before.

If I were a philosopher I could undoubtedly develop a whole new perspective by contemplating these doughty, wee plants. But as it is, I merely smile upon my two new plants and decide to pick up 10 more. What the heck! At these prices I can afford to intersperse new plants among the old ones.

We have to take some chances in life, and besides, when it comes to surviving adversity, primroses are proven performers. I plant them with pleasure and contemplate them with delight.

Then my semi-monthly English Garden magazine arrives in the mail. I leaf through the pages of visually stunning photographs of the perfectly groomed gardens of the British Isles.

They are a-riot with color and are planted so lushly that no patch of bare earth shows any place. I am all too aware that by comparison my garden is meager, even stingy-looking, and marks me as a Scrooge among gardeners. What is needed is a more lavish hand. "Dream large," I say to myself as I head off to the nursery where I purchase two whole flats of primroses.

After a primrose planting blitzkrieg by me and the man who comes once a week to help in my yard, I stand on the deck surveying our efforts. The effect is a pattern of randomly spaced, vivid dots strewn, like a broken string of beads on a brown carpet.

I have not begun to cover the ground and I have discovered a sobering truth. There is no such thing as enough primroses.

It occurs to me that the British have spent centuries developing their gardens. During that time, there have been whole regiments of gardeners devoted to dividing and propagating primroses. This year, knees permitting, I too shall divide my primrose plants.

Divide and conquer is probably an old English adage.

ooo

Lucille Lovestedt lives in Grass Valley.