HARDY CYCLAMEN
I am a great advocate of getting down on your knees and weeding. It’s very bad for the weeds, because there is no escape for them when a gardener gets so close to the earth. It’s very good for you because it provides a completely different perspective than the one you see from the long end of a hoe.
The other day I was down on my knees in my lower back garden, doing battle with the ever-present onion grass. My Japanese gardening knife was working overtime as the pile of green stalks and white bulbs piled up and the smell of onions wafted around me. The act of banishing onion grass was so absorbing that it took me a few minutes to notice the hardy cyclamen off to one side.
Hardy cyclamen are kin to the tender florist’s cyclamen, or Cyclamen persicum, which should start appearing in garden centers and other retail establishments within the next two weeks. Each of these indoor cyclamens’ flowers looks like a butterfly perched atop a six or eight inch stem, and the heart-shaped leaves are often mottled in shades of silvery gray, dark and light green. During the holidays, varieties with either red or white flowers are the most popular. Later in the winter, the pink or rose-flowered types begin appearing and are immediately snapped up by winter-weary gardeners.
If you love florist’s cyclamen, you will love the hardier garden varieties. The one in my back bed is ivy-leafed cyclamen or Cyclamen hederifolium. I bought a potted specimen last spring, planted it in the dry shady spot next to my predecessor’s ornamental wishing well in the back garden and then forgot all about it. A few days before we opened for a local garden tour last September, I noticed four or five pink flowers that were perfect miniatures of the showy blooms produced by florist’s cyclamen. Each was about an inch and a half wide and sprouted from a leafless stem about three inches high. Over the next week or so, a few more flowers opened up, and then the show was finished for the season. It wasn’t until I got down and dirty with the onion grass last week that I noticed about twenty cyclamen leaves erupting from the earth. The leaves, which were vaguely ivy-shaped, had even more beautiful markings than those typically seen on florist’s varieties. Silvery around the edges, with darker and lighter green markings, the leaves looked like an intricately woven tapestry when viewed from above. Experts warn that you can get hooked on cyclamen. One look at that foliage convinced me that the experts were right. Before winter sets in, I will mark the spot and plan on adding to the collection next spring.
The beautiful hardy cyclamen, which is a member of the primrose family, has inspired even more garden writers than the voracious groundhog. In her book, The Little Bulbs, the great twentieth century American garden writer Elizabeth Lawrence rhapsodized over “the frail elegance of these tiny flowers.” Her older contemporary, English garden writer E.A. Bowles, wrote in My Garden in Autumn and Winter:
“I have an insatiable desire for Cyclamens, and could never have too many, for I know of no other plant that will turn patches of dust under thick trees into stretches of beauty so permanently and thoroughly.”
Nancy Goodwin, musician, writer, gardener and former nursery owner, began her horticultural career with hardy cyclamen. Ippy Patterson’s lovely illustration of ivy-leafed specimen appears on the front cover of Goodwin’s book Montrose–life in a garden.
Some hardy cyclamen species flower in the late summer or very early fall, including C. hederifolium, C. mirabile and C. cilicium, which feature flowers ranging in color from white to deepest pink, and C. purpurescens, with darker rose blooms. C. coum, which has white, pink or red flowers, blooms in the early spring, as does the showy C. pseudoibericum, which is notable for its two-toned flowers. All cyclamens dislike hot summer weather and go dormant during that period.
Hardy cyclamen grow from tubers, and it is sometimes possible to buy those tubers and start them yourself. However, it is easier to buy them already potted up and growing from nurseries or garden centers. Whether you plant the tubers or install the potted specimens, remember to place them in a shady spot with very good drainage. Tubers should be planted with their tops just barely below ground level. Cyclamen almost always flourish under trees, which provide the needed shade as well as sucking up most of the soil’s surface moisture, leaving them with the dry conditions they prefer.
Cyclamen are probably about to enjoy a new wave of popularity, thanks to the influential wholesaler, Terra Nova Nurseries, which has developed a technique for reproducing large numbers of the plants via tissue culture. It is highly likely that the Terra Nova cyclamen, C. coum ‘Something Magic’, will be available in nurseries next spring. You can also order potted specimens for spring planting from Plant Delights Nursery, Inc., 9241 Sauls Road, Raleigh, NC 27603, (919) 772-4794, www.plantdelights.com. For a catalog, send ten first class stamps or a box of chocolates. The Plant Delights people say they prefer chocolates, but stamps will suffice.