Cyclamen graecum

[hamparstum]

Hi Steve, with your info ( I checked the link provided) I think in my particular location C. graecum will be a potted plant always so  that I can bring it inside in winter. Potted plants are very easy to keep watered  from below.  We are expecting regular frosts in the vicinity of -4ºC for the next weeks every morning. With no snow cover and thawing every mid day. The worst possible conditions... My garden is at 850m asl aprox. Quite suited for many alpines outside,  but in this particular species it will require special care.
Jamus! C. hederifolium might withstand it. I got just one plant and no nursery from where to get a replacement though. So perhaps a conservative approach may suit me...
Thanks to all, Arturo

[Darren]

I always found this species hard to flower in pots in a just frost-free greenhouse (I suspect too much heat and dryness at the roots in summer) so I moved all my plants (in clay pots) into an outdoor plunge frame several years ago. The covers are on through the worst of the winter (Early Nov to late Feb) and again in mid-late summer (from June to Late August).  We have a mild coastal garden and last time I lost a plant to frost was in early 2011 when the temperature dropped to -8C for several days. Only one or two plants at the edge of the frame died but the others survived. The few frosts at -3 or -4C we get in a typical winter don't bother it, especially if I keep the rain off. The summer protection keeps the top of the plants warm and dry but the sand they are plunged in never completely dries out. They flower beautifully now. There are some pictures here:

http://www.srgc.net/forum/index.php?topic=13876.135

Not sure I'd chance it if I didn't live on the west coast though.

[hamparstum]

Hi Darren, You've added one other dimension. I was thinking of letting my C.graecum stay in pots all their life, however plunged in the garden soil ( very light sandy)most of the season. Our summers are cool ( which should suit their need) and very dry. I could pick an even drier spot near a shaded east wall that is  in rain shadow. Our rains normally only blow from the west. Then mid fall when I an advised about impending hard frosts beyond -5ºC , lift the sunken pot and set it inside the cool greenhouse, for winter. By late spring beyond danger of hard frost return them to their outside position. Let them flower  by mid summer (am I correct?) and let them rest until the following fall. Would that be reasonable with what you have experimented?
Thank you
Arturo

[Darren]

Hi Arturo,

C.graecum is an autum flowered so in the northern hemisphere it flowers August to October. You could do what you suggest and plunge it outdoors when no frost is likely. I think it needs cool roots and some moisture even when dormant in summer. If you move it indoors after flowering in fall you will need to ensure it does not dry out during the winter.

[hamparstum]

Hi Darren, thank you very much. I'm yet a long way ( a few  years) to see it flower but at least I understand its cycle. I can regulate summer moisture very easily, so I'll make sure that it doesn't dry up completely. Cool roots I suppose may mean something in the order of 10ºC to 15ºC which is my soil temp in shaded parts during summer. Am I right? thanks again.
Arturo     

[anita]

Hi Anita, yes cyclamen can develop these 'floral trunks' particularly where tubers get an annual covering of leaf litter and so get a little deeper every year. In pots, the compost level can obviously drop over time as the humus/organic matter content in the compost is used up. Although I'm not sure that would adequately explain why your tubers have moved so far down in their pots!

I think Adelaide has a 'Mediterranean' climate? So C. graecum should do really well for you outdoors. They can certainly be seen in Greece growing on rocky ground and among the drystone walls farmers use to terrace cultivated areas on sloping ground.

I suspect hat our hot summers cause C. graecum to go deeper into the soil to escape surface heat. The seedlings I photographed were only one growing season old yet had dropped several centimetres from their shallow sowing. And this was a relatively cool summer for us with few days over 35deg C.
C. Graecum does do well in Adealide and like Jamus I do get a bit of a thrill being able to grow a species outdoors that is challenging to cultivate in northern Europe. While we will never be able to grow Meconopsis, and a thousand other cool climate jewels, we can easily grow the southern cyclamen such as graecum, balearicum, hederifolium africanum, coum, libanoticum and so on.
I was planning to mimic those Greek graecumgrowing in stone walls when I tipped out the pot of c graecum seedlings. A week after transplanting they are still looking a little sorry for themselves but Imhope to be able to post pictures of happily grwing wall huggers in the near future.
I am planning to naturalis

[vanozzi]

I have another pot of seedlings of graecum powering along, 2 years from sowing (2015) and some are flowering now.
Anyway, these seeds originated from Marcus, but there is great variation in the leaves, causing me to wonder if there may have been a mix up with seed ....until I read Razvan Chisu blog     http://razvanchisu.blogspot.co.uk/
where he shows 29 different leaf patterns of cyc.graecum collected on one small island near Nafpaktos.