{"id":65,"date":"2007-11-12T05:42:24","date_gmt":"2007-11-12T13:42:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/garden\/?p=65"},"modified":"2015-11-24T07:33:25","modified_gmt":"2015-11-24T15:33:25","slug":"hardy-cyclamen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/hardy-cyclamen\/","title":{"rendered":"Hardy Cyclamen"},"content":{"rendered":"

HARDY CYCLAMEN
\n<\/font><\/font><\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I am a great advocate of getting down on your knees and weeding.\u00a0 It’s very bad for the weeds, because there is no escape for them when a gardener gets so close to the earth.\u00a0 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. <\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The other day I was down on my knees in my lower back garden, doing battle with the ever-present onion grass.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 During the holidays, varieties with either red or white flowers are the most popular.\u00a0 Later in the winter, the pink or rose-flowered types begin appearing and are immediately snapped up by winter-weary gardeners.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 If you love florist’s cyclamen, you will love the hardier garden varieties.\u00a0 The one in my back bed is ivy-leafed cyclamen or Cyclamen hederifolium.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Each was about an inch and a half wide and sprouted from a leafless stem about three inches high. \u00a0Over the next week or so, a few more flowers opened up, and then the show was finished for the season.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 The leaves, which were vaguely ivy-shaped, had even more beautiful markings than those typically seen on florist’s varieties.\u00a0 Silvery around the edges, with darker and lighter green markings, the leaves looked like an intricately woven tapestry when viewed from above.\u00a0 Experts warn that you can get hooked on cyclamen.\u00a0 One look at that foliage convinced me that the experts were right.\u00a0 Before winter sets in, I will mark the spot and plan on adding to the collection next spring.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The beautiful hardy cyclamen, which is a member of the primrose family, has inspired even more garden writers than the voracious groundhog.\u00a0 In her book, The Little Bulbs<\/em>, the great twentieth century American garden writer Elizabeth Lawrence rhapsodized over “the frail elegance of these tiny flowers.”\u009d\u00a0 Her older contemporary, English garden writer E.A. Bowles, wrote in My Garden in Autumn and Winter<\/em>:<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 “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.”\u009d<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Nancy Goodwin, musician, writer, gardener and former nursery owner, began her horticultural career with hardy cyclamen.\u00a0 Ippy Patterson’s lovely illustration of ivy-leafed specimen appears on the front cover of Goodwin’s book Montrose–life in a garden.
\n<\/em><\/font><\/font>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>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.\u00a0 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. \u00a0<\/em>All cyclamens dislike hot summer weather and go dormant during that period.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Hardy cyclamen grow from tubers, and it is sometimes possible to buy those tubers and start them yourself.\u00a0 However, it is easier to buy them already potted up and growing from nurseries or garden centers.\u00a0 Whether you plant the tubers or install the potted specimens, remember to place them in a shady spot with very good drainage.\u00a0 Tubers should be planted with their tops just barely below ground level.\u00a0 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.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 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.\u00a0 It is highly likely that the Terra Nova cyclamen, C. coum ‘Something Magic’, will be available in nurseries next spring.\u00a0 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<\/font><\/a>.\u00a0 For a catalog, send ten first class stamps or a box of chocolates. \u00a0The Plant Delights people say they prefer chocolates, but stamps will suffice.<\/strong><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

HARDY CYCLAMEN \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I am a great advocate of getting down on your knees and weeding.\u00a0 It’s very bad for the weeds, because there is no escape for them when a gardener gets so close to the earth.\u00a0 It’s very good for you because it provides a completely different perspective than the one you see … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-65","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fall","category-general-interest"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1713,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65\/revisions\/1713"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}