If I were to take a single flowering plant to a desert island with me, it would have to be the cyclamen. Everything about this woodland perennial is unusual.
First there are the flowers (often sweetly scented); opening before the leaves appear in various shades of pink, white or red, with petals bending upward like flames. Then the leaves; heart shaped, ivy-like with patterns reminiscent to mathematical mandelbrot fractals. And finally, just when you think this plant can’t get any weirder, the seed pods ripen and cork-screw into clock-work-like springs and bury themselves into the ground. Are they from this world?
Cyclamen will thrive in places where many other plants fear to tread. You can plant them under bushes or trees/woodland garden. My mother-in-law has them growing abundantly amongst thick protruding roots of her silver birch tree. Cyclamen will also readily self-seed – the more the merrier!
Winter hardy varieties
- C. alpinum
- C. cilicium (sweetly scented)
- C. coum (very hardy – very popular)
- C. hederifolium (very hardy)
- C. intaminatum (nice alpine variety – small flowers)
- C. mirabile (will survice mild frosts)
- C. persicum grandiflorum (very easy to grow)
- C. purpurascens (very hardy)
- All year flowering mixture
Different Cyclamen varieties prefer different conditions, but most will thrive in partial/deep shade, in a loose, well drained soil with plenty of organic matter mixed into it. Tougher varieties such as C. hederifolium or C. purpurascens can cope with temperatures as low as -10 degrees.
Cyclamen are pretty easy to look after and once established (if under the right conditions), will provide tonnes of colour, year after year. My only advice - ensure the plants don’t get too dry during hot summers. A good mulch should help there.