One dreary winter’s day…
One dreary office desk…
Add one pot of bright pink cyclamen…
Okay, you won’t get a miracle, but I bet you’ll get at least a smile every time you look at those ridiculously pink pink PINK blooms peering up over the leaves.
Winter flowering cyclamens brighten up any office desk, kitchen windowsill or dining table. Actually cyclamen come in white too, as well as red, mauve, purple, and many shades of pink. But it’s the bright lipstick cyclamens that are the most common, and the most loved of winter blooming pot plants. There is nothing in a pot — that isn’t plastic anyhow — quite as bright as a pink cyclamen. And they bloom and bloom, from April right through to late spring — if they’re in the right spot.
That’s a big ‘if.’ Often gardeners wonder why their friend’s cyclamen gives endless flowers, but theirs seems to shrink a little more every day. And the answer is that real estate agents’ mantra: position, position, position.
Cyclamen HAVE to be in just the right spot to thrive. They’re okay with warm days (and air-conditioning), but they must have cool nights — so hopefully the heating in your office is turned off for at least a few hours when no one is there. If not, place the pot in a cool spot before you leave — even the crisper in the fridge will do, or maybe a cool spot in the loo. They like a bit of light during the day, too — near a well-lit window is perfect. If that’s all too much trouble, just leave them be and take them home every fortnight or so for a few days R & R and give them more light and coolness to stimulate more flowers.
Don’t over-water your cyclamen either. Water around the sides of the pot, not on the ‘corm’ — the base of the plant — or the leaves (this can lead to fungal problems and your plant may die.) And if you want to give your cyclamen a real treat, water them with the coldest water you can find — right out of the fridge —. It’ll also help stimulate the flowers and leaves to better growth. Do not water with tepid water in winter (as indoor plants need), because they love their water to have that real winter chill.
Another trick is not to water the pot at all. Just stand it in a saucer of chilled water for about 15 minutes. But don’t let them stand in water all the time, or even for much longer than this, or again you may get leaf or root rots.
Cyclamen die back in the heat of summer. Don’t water them when they’re sleeping — and don’t think they’re dead either, and throw them out! Just take the pots outside, place them under a bush that isn’t going to get much water, and wait for autumn. When the cool weather comes again the leaves will begin to grow. This is the time to scatter on some slow release fertilizer granules (Just follow the packet directions).
Cyclamen give a glorious display outdoors too, though the owners of the most stunning cyclamen gardens have usually cheated a bit — they’ve taken potted cyclamen and buried those pots and all in the soil, with a bit of tan bark or straw mulch to hide any rims that might give the game away.
But if you want to have a genuine cyclamen bed outdoors, choose a well drained spot with dappled shade (in the shade of a tree, perhaps) and plant the tiny ‘corms’ just under the surface of the spoil, almost poking out. They plants will die down in summer, just like the potted ones.
You can plant a shade loving summer annual over them once they die back, like impatiens (perennial in frost free areas), night scented tobacco, delphiniums in cooler climates, or the annual Salvia ‘bonfire’ for a summer as vividly red as your winter has been bright pink. But again, don’t over-water the summer annuals or your cyclamen will rot. It may be safer just to leave that space bare, in return for that glorious winter colour.
