07-11-2003, 10:22 PM
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These autumn crocus were REALLY ready
In article ,
pamfree (Zemedelec) wrote:
Thanks for all the info. I did indeed get tubers--not from Bulbmeister or
Heronwood, though. With your advice at hand, I may give them another try.
Ever since I saw wild cyclamen growing in the mountains above Beirut, and
indeed in any likely spot in the city where they could get a hold, I loved
them. Huge range of colors, from pure white with a red eye to deep magenta,
not forgetting the pink variety with darker pink freckles.
zemedelec
Several of the two-year seedlings we obtained (of five different species &
many more cultivar varieties) came from Heronswood a few miles from us, so
they were never growing in another zone than right here, & nothing to
adjust to. Heronswood got their initial seeds from Ashwood in England, a
very fine source of unusual varieties. I've gotten seedlings & even potted
older plants much more cheaply elsewhere, but not the same range of kinds.
The seedlings we've gotten at Heronswood have always in their had a few
blooms & a few leaves so there was no waiting for the first rewards, then
their second year in the garden (as three-year-old seedlings) they have a
great many blooms & leaves, & just better & better as each year passes. I
sometimes feel critical of Heronswood for selling things so young you have
to have your own greenhouse set up to care for them then harden them off
slowly for the garden, but the cyclamens present no problem at all. Maybe
I've been lucky but I think of them as fool-proof plants -- if NOT
purchased as dried tubers that can do poorly.
The hardiest of the hardies are autumn-blooming Cyclamen hederifolium, &
almost as sturdy & also extremely easy are winter-blooming C. coum. With
just these two species you can have cyclemens with stunning leaves
flowering in the garden from September to March. The flowers tend to be
very similar, so it's nice to select varieties foremost for unusual leaf
types, & the "pewter group" is particularly nice for a different effect
amidst plain ones, mottled ones, & patternleaf types.
There've been a couple cultivars of C. coum that have been slower to
develop for us, but when there are two to four in any given spot, enough
of them will be developing rapidly, & the others will catch up in time.
We've an "Apollo" with a white-outlined tree-pattern on the leaf that has
been comparatively slow & has remained very little in its clump. Sometiems
the difference in behavior is because conditions from one end of the
garden to the other are so different that that's the cause, but in other
cases the given strains or cultivars really do behave differently under
identical conditions.
In our zone (usda 8) the third-hardiest we've planted is C. intaminatum,
which we built a miniature raised bed for because it is such a dwarf. The
mottled leaves are only the size of quarters strewn on the ground, so it
could be overwhelmed by larger plants if not careful. I would ordinarily
recommend only C. hederifolium or C. coum for starting out, because the
seedlings or slightly older pot-grown specimens of either of those will be
almost impossible to fail with. But because our C. intaminatum has been
ever-blooming & keeps at least this one cyclamen in our garden even in
summer, I'm really enamored of it for having no dormant period at all &
spreading more quickly than any other species we have. Curiously
different catalogs & webistes report more limited bloom times for C.
intaminatum, so its everblooming potential may be only in a protected spot
in a zone 8 garden, where it seems to go from February to November
reliably with flowers coming & going throughout that long stretch of time,
peaking in September, & the leaves with a lovely presence even when not in
bloom so it never vanishes even for a little while. It may be the only
temperate species that'll do this, at least I've never seen it described
for any others.
If you really wanted to be conservative to test how they'll do for you,
you should start with autumn plantings of C. hederifolium which will not
disappoint, but you wouldn't be taking much of a risk to plant C. coum at
the same time. Plain ones without cultivar names can be very inexpensive,
then when you know for sure how easy they are, it's worth jumping at the
price of rarer cultivars to increase the leaf varieties.
-paghat the ratgirl
--
"Of what are you afraid, my child?" inquired the kindly teacher.
"Oh, sir! The flowers, they are wild," replied the timid creature.
-from Peter Newell's "Wild Flowers"
See the Garden of Paghat the Ratgirl: http://www.paghat.com/
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