In article ,
Chris Hogg wrote:
On Wed, 2 Aug 2017 16:10:20 +0100, Asha Santon
wrote:

This question is about the cylamen sold in small shallow depth pots in
supermarkets and otherwhere.

My understanding is that in the past there were three sorts of
cyclamen generally available: cyclamen hederifolium, hardy and autumn
flowering; cyclamen coum, hardy and spring flowering, and cyclamen
persicum, not hardy, winter flowering, and often sold around
Christmas, usually very cheap in the New Year sale, to clear.

Sort of. C. coum, at least, flowers in either spring or autumn,
depending on what it feels like. I discovered by accident that
its preferred habitat in the UK is under conifers or in the rain
shadow of eaves etc. Mine is in the latter, it grows in spring and
autumn, and dies off in seriously cold or dry conditions (i.e. in
most winters and summers). That's what it does in the wild, but
the differences from there may be why it sometimes flowers in
autumn.

Only C. europeum can take the wet of a typical British winter, as
far as I know, and that probably doesn't like it much. Exactly
what conditions anything other than C. coum prefers, I don't know.
The standard garden centre and supermarket cyclamen is definitely
mainly C. persicum, and is not hardy, even when they say it is.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.