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Guff
| | Posted on Monday, August 15, 2005 - 06:31 pm EST : |   
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Any update pictures on your neighbors cyclamen?
Wondering how many flowers do you usally get the first time they flower, i'm looking forward to next fall.
Guff
- NY,
Zone "?"
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Tim
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 16, 2005 - 04:04 am EST : |
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Still only a few flowers on those plants, Guff. Should be better in a couple of weeks or so. I find that hederifolium flowering for the first time can put up anything from just one flower, to occasionally half a dozen or so.
Tim
- Cambridgeshire,
Zone "7 "
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Tim
| | Posted on Tuesday, September 13, 2005 - 04:15 am EST : |
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Below are two photos of the plants at the top of the page. Photos taken yesterday.
Tim
- Cambridgeshire,
Zone "7 "
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Jgwoodard
| | Posted on Tuesday, September 13, 2005 - 05:33 am EST : |
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Nice photos Tim. In the second photo the plant in the foreground is an amazing contrast to the two tubers visible in the background. Why do you think the other tubers look so bare at this point? Maybe the one in the foreground is adapted to a place of colder and earlier winters, or maybe they just responded differently to the spots they were planted in?
The one in the upper left appears to have buds though, and the plants seem resilient and content in their exposed condition.
Jgwoodard
- TN,
Zone "6b"
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Terryk
My Weather
My Garden
My Time
| | Posted on Tuesday, September 13, 2005 - 03:00 pm EST : |
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They are wonderful with all those flowers. The leaves are a nice pattern also. I just planted a bed of white c. hederifolium, 108 plants total. Maybe in about five years they will look like this.
Would you, if they were on your property, Tim leave them as exposed as they are or would you top with more soil or mulch?
Guff must be counting the flowers and calculating the amount of seed he would get from this plant!
Terryk
- NY,
Zone "6"
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Tim
| | Posted on Tuesday, September 13, 2005 - 04:50 pm EST : |
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Could be any one of those reasons, Joseph - or one of several more! Could just be that the larger plants got a better start from day one, and have continued to grow vigorously.
The bed they are growing in is quite small - 12 feet long x 6 feet deep, and is well sheltered, and north facing. The plants get no direct sun at all. Filtered light for a few hours in the morning, that's all. It is ever-so slightly sloping, and the plants with more growth are at the bottom of this very shallow slope, so they might get more moisture early on, spurring them into growth. Could just be that they are from more vigorous stock... all conjecture unfortunately.
Terry, I used to plant my tubers of C. hederifolium covered, and have planted some like this recently. I have also planted a few with the tubers exposed, and I will watch how they settle in and grow on carefully. I've seen lots of hederifolium on the Greek island of Corfu, many of the sites being in abandoned olive groves, and it's very often the case that the tubers are exposed just like in the photos above.
All my hederifolium at the last house were planted covered, and they did very well. They tend to spread a little more, whereas a more compact plant is produced if planted with the tuber exposed.
Tim
- Cambridgeshire,
Zone "7 "
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Terryk
My Weather
My Garden
My Time
| | Posted on Tuesday, September 13, 2005 - 10:42 pm EST : |
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Tim wrote on Tuesday, September 13, 2005 - 11:50 am:whereas a more compact plant is produced if planted with the tuber exposed.
That's very interesting tip to know. Maybe if my plants get too leggy, I will try this with a few.
Terryk
- NY,
Zone "6"
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Guff
| | Posted on Wednesday, September 14, 2005 - 01:08 am EST : |
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Very nice Tim, I can just image having a couple hundred like that, what a sight that would be.
I read that cyclamen can live for 50+ years. What I was wondering how big do they get. The ones above look to be very nice size for only being around 5-6 years.
Whats the most flowers you have seen, or attempted to count.
Guff
- NY,
Zone "?"
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Tim
| | Posted on Wednesday, September 14, 2005 - 04:11 pm EST : |
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Apparently the tubers of C. hederifolium can reach a size of 12 inches across. I've never seen one this big. I've seen tubers of C. persicum that size though. Life span, like tuber size does vary from species to species, so I wouldn't expect C. coum for example, to reach an age of 50 years old.
What's the most flowers I've seen? How about this? Probably looking at as many as 500 hundred flowers on this plant. This was exhibited at a spring Cyclamen Society show at RHS Wisley back in 2004. Needless to say it won its class and best plant in show. I think the pan was around 16 inches in diameter. Oh, and it's not my plant - unfortunately!
Don't get carried away thinking that C. coum like this are common. This is an exceptional plant, grown by two exceptional growers.
Tim
- Cambridgeshire,
Zone "7 "
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Terryk
My Weather
My Garden
My Time
| | Posted on Wednesday, September 14, 2005 - 04:32 pm EST : |
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Steroids?! That is amazing. So this just shows that c. coum can be as robust as c. hederifolium. Or can c. hederifolium get bigger than this?
Terryk
- NY,
Zone "6"
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Guff
| | Posted on Wednesday, September 14, 2005 - 06:34 pm EST : |
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Wow, thats amazing, thanks for sharing that Tim.
How old is the above plant?
Guff
- NY,
Zone "?"
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Guff
| | Posted on Sunday, December 11, 2005 - 03:09 pm EST : |
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Tim, have you seen a cyclamen in the wild that big, or do they tend to die off in the wild, when they get a certain size.
Guff
- NY,
Zone "?"
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Tim
| | Posted on Sunday, December 18, 2005 - 06:44 am EST : |
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Sorry Terry and Guff, I missed the questions you posted back in September. C. hederifolium can get as big as this, although it's the exception rather than the rule (same for the plant in the photo).
The plant in the photo Guff, was around five years old when the photo was taken. it is owned by a couple who are exceptional growers of cyclamen. I think that their collection of cyclamen isn't all that big, but the plants that they do grow are superb. They own a C. parviflorum which is almost as big as the above coum.
It's mostly to do with the way the plants are grown. They did a talk about it at the Cyclamen Society conference in 2004, which I missed (I was looking after the plant sales stall), but as I understand it, the top of the tuber is kept dry by using a sleeve of polythene. It seems that keeping the top of the tuber dry, where the growth points are, helps more growth points to form and stops existing ones rotting off. Bizarrely, the plant doesn't set all that much seed.
I've seen a few large tubers in the wild. On the 2003 trip to study C. mirabile, I picked out a plant to collect and started to dig around the leaves and flowers. I came up against something hard, which I thought was a piece of stone. So, I dig around the other side of the tuber, only to have the same thing happen. After a lot of fiddling, I managed to extract the tuber, which turned out to be some nine inches across! A huge tuber for this species. Although good to know that tubers of this size exist in this species, it isn't a particularly good plant to collect. We would much rather collect smaller tubers, as they have a much better chance of settling in back in cultivation. And of course, they will be with us for longer (hopefully!) as they are younger.
This large tuber very recently came into my care, and it is still alive and doing well.
Tim
- Cambridgeshire,
Zone "7 "
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Terryk
My Weather
My Garden
My Time
| | Posted on Sunday, December 18, 2005 - 10:00 am EST : |
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It's nice to see you back on the forum Tim.
Tim wrote on Sunday, December 18, 2005 - 12:44 am:but as I understand it, the top of the tuber is kept dry by using a sleeve of polythene. It seems that keeping the top of the tuber dry, where the growth points are, helps more growth points to form and stops existing ones rotting off. Bizarrely, the plant doesn't set all that much seed.
Now that you have this plant in your care do you still have the sleeve of polythene on the plant Tim? It must be such a responsibility to have this one to take care of, but it's in good hands. I wonder if as they age, just like us humans, the ability to reproduce diminishes with time?
Terryk
- NY,
Zone "6"
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Guff
| | Posted on Sunday, December 18, 2005 - 02:25 pm EST : |
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Tim, I have noticed sometimes when I water mine, the new grow tips sometimes die off. I had wondered what was causing this. They would look really healthy, then a couple days later it would be wilting and dieing. I won't let the top of the corm get any water for now on.
But when their outdoors/ growing wild, I can't see how you would stop this, so I take it's normal thing for them to do?
Guff
- NY,
Zone "?"
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Tim
| | Posted on Sunday, December 18, 2005 - 03:58 pm EST : |
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I don't have that large coum in my care, Terry. It's in a private collection. I was referring to the large C. mirabile tuber I extracted whilst in Turkey in October/November 2003. I don't think it's the age of the plant which stops it producing much seed - after all, the plant was only five years old when the photo was taken (back in spring 2004 I think). David Baker was with me at that show whilst on one of his hellebore trips to the UK. You should have seen his face when he saw this huge coum. Jaw right there on the floor! I wasn't much better, standing next to him drooling. Some plant just don't set much seed.
Could be a variety of reasons, Guff. Over-watering perhaps? I wouldn't worry too much about watering from the top. I've been doing it for seven years now and suffer very few losses. I am going to switch to watering from the bottom next year, but this is more to do with saving time. The flood benches will allow me to water hundreds of plants at once. Watering from the bottom individually is very time consuming, unless you have a lot of time on your hands, Guff...
Many cyclamen you see in the wild don't actually get that much water directly on top of the tuber. Many of the C. mirabile we saw in Turkey were growing underneath Quercus coccifera (small - around 4-6 feet in height due to heavy grazing by goats). The Quercus shielded the cyclamen from any direct water, so the tubers took water from the surrounding soil.
Wherever we saw cyclamen in the open, they were growing through thick grass, competing with other plants for moisture and often on slopes, so again the tubers were never sitting in water.
If you decide to go the watering from the bottom Guff, let us know how you get on.
Tim
- Cambridgeshire,
Zone "7 "
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