Category Archives: cyclamen

The last bits

Between working late every day and changing the clocks, my enthusiasm for the garden has dropped off the edge of a cliff.  The leaves are down and the soil is still on the dry side so that’s not helping either.  I guess winter is the perfect time to hibernate, but before I shut down completely here are some last pictures.  Some selfsown mums are still blooming.  I’m not crazy about the colors, but the timing is a welcome last call.seed grown chrysanthemumsThe milk thistle seedling still fascinates me with its cool mottled foliage, but I still have my doubts about it overwintering.  So far I’ve only ever managed to grow it as an annual, not a biennial (which I think is what it prefers)milk thistle foliageMy one cyclamen hederifolium seedling which gets a pink tinge is coloring up for the winter.  Now that temps are dropping into the 20’s I brought it into the garage for safekeeping even though I’m sure it’s hardy enough to overwinter in the ground (but I would miss it out there!)cyclamen hederifolium with pink foliageOne job which I did get done before free time dissapeared was the tidying up of the compost pile.  Not everyone has this much room surrounded by a fancy pink marble block wall, so I’m kind of grateful for that…. but I still wish I had more leaves and such to fill it up with.diy compost pile So that’s the story from here.  Things are shutting down and I just don’t have any motivation, but that could change at any time.  Just last week I noticed a bunch of seeds I wanted to plant this fall, and bulb clearance sales typically start on thanksgiving.  It’s hard to be unmotivated when a couple hundred bulbs are shipping your way 🙂

Hope your end of season plans are going better than mine!

Someone thinks it’s winter

I feel like I hit the jackpot!  It’s not often that I get all excited over a plant, but this one has me visiting it as often as I can (ok, so maybe I do get a little too excited about many plants, hence the creation of this blog, and the insulation it provides my friends and family from too much plant talk)

I think this snowdrop is a fall blooming version of one of my springtime favorites.  I bought the bulbs a few weeks ago at my favorite local PA nursery, Perennial Point, and since they were lose bulbs I (of course) poked around in there to pick out the 10 absolute best (they were all in good shape).  One bulb was already sprouting in the box and I knew I had to have that one.  Even though the bulbs were labeled galanthus woronowii I had a suspicion they may be incorrectly labeled as are many snowdrops in cultivation.  I’m sure more photos will follow once my camera returns from Florida, but for now this one off my phone will have to do in showing what I think is galanthus elwesii var. monostictus.  That’s quite a mouthful, but it’s basically the regular giant snowdrop with just one green spot rather than the typical two.  Also it’s a fall/early winter bloomer as opposed to the normal late winter g. elwesii.fall snowdrop

Nothing is guaranteed, but if you look at the label you’ll see I potted the bulbs up Nov 3, and while its potmates are barely breaking the surface this one is already in full bloom.  I wonder what next year (assuming I don’t kill it) will bring 🙂 ! also I wonder what the other bulbs in the pot will turn out to be…

btw, the cyclamen coum is also way out of season, but I bet it’s more due to relief for having survived my neglect this summer than it is to any new and unusual genetic quirk.  In any case my winter garden appears to be off to a great start!

Cyclamen on the move

Rather than do the right thing at the right time I like to test the limits of my plants,  so if you’re looking for good advice you might want to move on to your next search result 😉 but if you’re like me and can barely get around to half the stuff you want to (even at the wrong times), well then I say “Tally Ho!”

Cyclamen should be transplanted when dormant if possible.  It’s easier and probably less stressful for the plant.  I’ve found they don’t really care all that much and do it whenever the mood strikes, so when the mood struck last week (about two months too late) my little guys got roomier quarters.  Winter blooming cyclamen coum was my target and this replanting is to get them ready to come indoors and brighten up my winter garden.cyclamen coum ready for repottingC. coum is perfectly hardy outdoors around here (zone 5/6ish) and I only keep them potted because they’re so easy to grow and bloom in the back corner of our semi-heated garage.  They’ll bloom throughout the darkest days of winter, unless for some reason one decided to start now.

early blooming cyclamen coumFor repotting, a gritty good draining mix is perfect, but mine do well enough in a blend of 3 parts purchased potting soil mixed with about 2 parts sand robbed from the kid’s sandbox.  Sometimes the kids complain, and the mix gets less sand.  Replant the round bulbs with the top of the corm just at the soil surface and then cover it up with about an inch or so of gravel or grit.  I prefer chicken grit since it’s easy to find around here and was the topping first recommended to me by Carol, my cyclamen mentor and enabler.

Finished product.repotted cyclamenA few of the plain green ‘Meadens Crimson’ went into garden beds since winter garden space is limited, but this was a good start, and not as many plants as I thought, so it inspired me to take a leftover c. coum pot and bring them in too.cyclamen coum seedlings

How could I resist?  I love the one with the ring of pewter patches, and the silver leaf with the small Christmas tree center….. also a favorite.  It’s been a few days and the plants have settled in well outside.  I feel like the cooler temps and good air circulation help avoid any rot or fungus, and I think the fact they are actively growing helps too, but untangling the leaf and bloom shoots is like separating Velcro.potted cyclamen coum

Most of the fall blooming cyclamen hederifolium will stay outdoors.  There are still a few blooms coming up, but from now through winter it will be the foliage which steals the show.fall cyclamen blooms

In this dark dry spot under a weeping cherry I’ve been putting a few of the too-large or excess cyclamens.cyclamen hederifolium

They might be too close together.  I think I’d prefer to be able to enjoy each different leaf pattern separately and some of the smaller plants don’t compete well with the bigger guys.  I’ll just have to put that on the to-do list.hardy cyclamen

Also on the to-do list is finding homes for all the cyclamen hederifolium still in pots.  Last year my brilliant idea was to pot them up individually so I could get the full effect of each separate plant and maybe take them all in under lights.  Not enough room, so I tried to find a sheltered spot, dug in the pots and gave them a little winter cover and crossed my fingers.  Most died either over the winter or during the summer, so I will not test that method again.  These surviving treasures will either enjoy a winter garden spot or find a permanent planting bed.  The plants near the center are from (like nearly all the other cyclamen) Green Ice seed, these were from the ‘fairy rings’ strain.cyclamen hederifolium foliage

I like how this one’s more silvery leaves stand out.silver edged cyclamen hederifolium

Here’s one that develops a pinkish center as temperatures drop.  This one will get a windowsill spot for sure.pink foliage on cyclamen hederifolium

I do like my cyclamen…. addiction might be a word you could throw around here…. Just wait until the c. coum start to flower this winter, you’ll be avoiding this blog for sure as the entries fill with the same blooms over and over again.  I will try to show a little bit of restraint, but I don’t think I’m the only cyclamen fan out there 😉

If you’re craving more examples of great foliage, check out the garden blogger’s foliage day (GBFD) hosted over at Christina’s Hesperidesgarden.  It’s a great chance to check out each month’s best foliage plants from all over the world (and a great blog every other day of the month too!)

The cyclamen are back

It’s raining this evening and I hope this finally takes us out of the summer long drought we’ve been limping through.  The rain will hopefully soften the rock hard soil and usher in a nice gentle season of planting and transplanting.  Somehow the cyclamen knew the calendar had turned to fall, in spite of the heat and drought they’ve been sprouting up amongst the dry, dead leaves and giving fresh hope for fall.

Nothing else grows in the dry shade of this weeping cherry, but the cyclamen don’t seem to mind.  The cyclamen hederifolium  normally come into bloom now, some years earlier, some later, but they always seem to know summer is winding down.  Usually the flowers come up before the leaves even show, but I like it when the two appear at the same time.

The colors range from white to dark purple and this planting was really starting to look good until some kind of basketball/wagon/quad/bicycle incident at dusk.

There might be some recovery but right now most are crushed or have a ‘windswept’ look.

All of these are from seed.  My introduction to these plants came from a friend who sent me a mixed packet to try out.  I planted them in the fall and was amazed to see them sprout during the winter on a cold windowsill and start showing off their fancy little leaves…. until I killed most of them when I left the pot out during a hard freeze.

But gardeners are nothing if not resilient, so next fall I planted a whole new batch of seeds from Green Ice Nursery in the Netherlands.  They were more than amazing.  I grew them under lights in the cool of the basement, repotted them for the next year, put them out for the summer and even enjoyed some flowers that fall.  Another winter indoors and I was starting to recover from the pain of killing off my first batch.

That summer I potted up the best looking ones into individual pots to really get the full effect.  I could admire the individual plants and their cool leaves this way.  (by the way, chicken grit -available at feed stores- makes the perfect pot topper for these guys)

A few really stood out.  This one was a nicely colored, heavy bloomer that sent up plenty of foliage as a backdrop for the two toned flowers.

,

Things were going really well until it came time to move them in.  I couldn’t find enough room for what was now about 80 pots in all kinds of sizes.  So I crossed my fingers, dug them in for the winter in a sheltered spot, and hoped for the best.

While hope may spring eternal, its got to make it through winter first.  Between January and August I again lost most of my little cyclamen, and as of today this is what remains.  Maybe 15 of the original 80 plants still survive.

But never fear, any healthy new obsession involves overkill, and you can bet that even though I’ve lost so many there are also so many more coming along.  Here are last winter’s new seedlings growing happily.  They are courtesy the N. American Rock Gardens Society’s annual seed exchange.  Members donate seeds in the fall and other members such as myself reap the rewards during the winter exchange.  For a pittance to cover postage you can pick up all kinds of new and unusual plant seeds, many of which are just not available elsewhere.

Besides the exchange, there’s also the possibility I broke down last winter and ordered even more seeds from Green Ice.  Jan Bravenboer of Green Ice must have a great eye for cyclamen, so many of his strains seem to be one in a million plants picked out from here and there across Europe.  I had to get just a few more which are sprouting now, and I’m glad I did.  Changes in the inspection policies of the EU have made the certificates on small orders such as mine way too expensive for honest buyers/sellers.

The seeds in themselves are cool too.  When cyclamen blooms are pollinated, the flower stalk curls up and the growing seed pod is snuggled down into the mulch next to the plant.  There they sit safely tucked in until the seeds ripen.

There are other cyclamen that overwinter just fine (when planted properly) in my zone 5/6ish garden.  The patterned waterlily shaped leaves below belong to cyclamen coum, which is setting buds for Feb/March blooming, and the smaller silvery leaves bottom right belong to cyclamen purpurescens.

The summer blooming C. Purpurescens might be the hardiest of them all.  I’m having a little trouble making it happy but I think once established it will settle into a zone 4 garden without trouble, and you can enjoy the leaves all year as they don’t die back like many of the other types.

I’m afraid I’ve gone on too long again.  It’s Sunday morning and the rain is finished and the birds are all over the place.  Time to head out there and check things out.  I’ll bore you with many more cyclamen in the future, trust me.