In article ,
(John Ladasky) wrote:

Hi, folks,

It's been a while since I checked in here. I'm gardening in San Jose,
California (USDA zone 9, Sunset zone 16).

My son likes plants! Last fall, he asked us to buy a "Laser Scarlet"
cyclamen at a local home and garden store, which we potted and enjoyed
on the back patio all winter and spring. Then it went dormant, and
maybe it died.

This season, the store has stocked many more of these plants, and
they're even pretty cheap. So we bought a few more. By now, I've
done some homework, and I've concluded that "Laser Scarlet" is a
cultivar of florist's cyclamen, C. persicum, a perennial native to the
eastern Mediterranean. Knowing that, I thought that we might try them
as a permanent garden feature, given that we live in California.

We've put them straight in the ground this time, in a partly-shaded
area on a slope near our apple tree. I amended the soil with a little
peat moss and sand before planting. So fertility should be good, and
I'm sure that drainage is excellent. I've top-dressed the soil around
the plants with some redwood bark floss, but made sure to keep the
crowns uncovered. I watered them heavily once, when I first put them
in, but have done little to them since.

The plants have been in the ground for a month, and they look quite
happy.

I've also planted out the contents of the dormant cyclamen pot from
last season. I'm not sure if there's anything still alive in there.
The roots that I saw looked brown and shrivelled. I didn't want to
dig into the encrusted soil to examine the corm, for fear of breaking
the roots.

Has anyone tried this species outdoors? I can see that a lot of
gardeners try C. coum or C. hederifolia, but everyone seems to grow C.
persicum as a houseplant. The main problem with C. persicum seems to
be sensitivity to frost.

Regular wild-form C. persicum do well in zones 8-10 out in the garden,
though its myriad cultivars are only guaranteed to thrive outdoors in zone
10. My wild C. persicums have splendid autumn flowering followed by
leaves; the blooms are very upright, very pink, & slightly larger than the
usual hardy cyclamens. As a generality, the florist cyclamens with the
smallest flowers are closest in their nature to the wild form, & that
includes little 'Laser Scarlet.'

So while florist cyclamens won't ordinarily survive outdoors where winter
temperatures fall below 30 degrees F., 'Laser Scarlet' is an exception.
I've had it do well for three years by now, in zone 8, gorgeous leafage,
though the flowers have been sparse compared to C. coum & C. hederifolium
& the wild C. persicum. 'Laser Scarlet' ought to do even better for you in
zone 9, & a few of the more delicate varieties MIGHT be worth trying in a
sheltered location for zone 9. They like shady spots close to tree trunks
which never stay moist for too long at a time.

I do not plan to provide any off-season water for these plants. So
they'll definitely be going dormant in the summer. (I'm not even sure
that I could prevent them from going dormant if I wanted to.) I do
not intend to dig and store the corms, either.

To keep this patch of the garden from looking ugly eight months from
now, I'd like to find a suitable companion plant that, at the least,
is green in the summertime, and whose foliage would not overshadow the
cyclamens while they're putting on their show. Any suggestions? I
was thinking of something like Pacific coast hybrid iris. I have a
surplus of narcissus and freesia bulbs, but I'm not sure that either
will tolerate the shade.

Anything you plant with them should ENTIRELY die back by September, or you
will not see the cyclamen flowers. Here in zone 8 something like Purple
Meadow Crane's-bill (Geranium pratense) can do the trick because its
entirely spent by September when the cyclamens start flowering (but meadow
crane's-bill might last too late in the year in zone 9). Also its root
system is not aggressive (other crane's-bills persist until early winter
or even year-round so would hide the cyclamens; or iberian or magnifica or
bigroot varieties have aggressive roots that can actually lift the
cyclamens out of their locations; & of course to bloom well the
crane's-bills need more sun than do the cyclamens -- so it's not a perfect
match but any part-shade-tolerant early-autumn-die-back variety might come
close). Another option would be shade annuals that are nearly spent by
September & even if they wanted to last until november can be cut to the
ground al ittle prematurely just as the cyclamens are beginning to bloom.

Occasionally they mix well with something like Muscari latifolium which
can tolerate conditions under deciduous trees, appearing so early in
spring that the leaves are not back on the trees yet so they do get some
light. Muscaris are coming into their own as the cyclamens are vanishing.
Almost any muscari will do but not M. botryoides which has autumn grass
tall enough to hide cyclamens. Most other muscaris don't produce leaves
until spring. Crocuses might also work, especially C. tommasiannus which
can bloom quite well under deciduous trees & will naturalize forever. But
when the muscaris or crocuses are done by later in spring, you're still
left with a blank spot in the garden. If the cyclamens are up close to a
tree which is their ideal, nothing else much likes to grow in such a spot
anyway, & a blank area in summer looks normal around a tree.

Tuberous irises probably wouldn't cohabit with cyclamens all that well,
though reticulated dwarfs which have little bulbs instead of aggressive
tubers would do as well as crocus or muscari or Scilla mischtschenkoana
'Tubergeniana.'

A very tiny evergreen fern called Alpine Water Fern (Blechnum penna-marina
alpina) might make a good companion with cyclamens, as it is so extremely
low-growing that even tiny cyclamens will rise above it in their season.
This fern is hard to track down though, often pricy, and slow to spread.
But worth tracking down.

In a more open area their companion can just be a large woody deciduous
shrub since they need some protection from overhead sun anyway, &
cyclamens are adapted to nestle between the woody roots of shrubs or
trees.

If you start he
http://www.paghat.com/cyclamen.html
you can start on a linked series of pages about hardy cyclamens of sundry
species and cultivars all much hardier than florist cyclamens. The only
one that keeps a summer presence is C. intaminatum, & conceivably you
could use that as a companion for 'Laser Scarlet' as it would persist
beyond the presence of the Laser, though it does eventually go dormant
too.

-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"
Visit the Garden of Paghat the Ratgirl: http://www.paghat.com