I would like to buy a flowering plant for a friend to celebrate his new home which he just moved into and am looking for a suggestion.
— Randy Avers, Chicago
I think a cyclamen would be a nice choice, Randy. It can provide an easy eight weeks of winter color with the right care.
Success in growing a cyclamen starts with the environment. It will do best when kept in a north window with bright, indirect light in a cool room, 55 to 65 degrees Fahrenheit. If you can’t maintain those cool temperatures and your home is over 70 degrees during the day and over 65 degrees at night, your cyclamen may start to yellow, and the flowers will fade a little faster—but you can still get a good few weeks of color, so if you ask me, it’s not a reason to avoid this plant. Cyclamens sold as houseplants are Mediterranean and can’t tolerate temperatures below 40 degrees, so protect them by putting a sleeve around them when transporting the plants home. In nature, these cyclamens grow in cool, humid environments. There are also hardy cyclamens that can be grown outside in your garden.
One thing to keep in mind is that cyclamens are sensitive to both over and under-watering. Start with a potting medium with excellent drainage and a container with a hole or holes in the bottom for the water to drain out of the pot. Water your cyclamen plant only when the soil is dry to the touch — don’t wait so long that it shows visible signs of being too dry, like wilting leaves and flowers. You want to water it enough to keep the plant evenly moist but never soggy. Try to avoid splashing the crown of the plant or the foliage when you water it since this can promote disease. Be sure to thoroughly soak the growing medium and let any excess water drain away when you water.
You can remove fading flowers, their stems, and yellowing leaves as needed. Fertilize once every one to two months with water-soluble fertilizer mixed at half strength. When cyclamen get too much fertilizer, it can affect their ability to bloom again.
Some gardeners find it too difficult to force the plant to bloom again the next season and end up buying a new plant. If you’d like to try, here’s the process. After a cyclamen blooms, it will go into a dormant state with the leaves turning yellow and falling off. Stop watering the plant once you see the signs that the leaves are all dying back. Place the plant in a cool, somewhat dark place. Remove dead foliage and let the plant sit for a couple of months. Another option is to remove soil from the tuber and store it in peat moss or vermiculite in a dark, cool (50 degrees) location for its dormant period. Later in spring or early summer, check the tuber for new growth. When you do see new growth, repot the tuber with its top half exposed and bottom half planted in a fresh growing medium. At that point, you should return to normal watering and fertilize the plant with a dilute 10-10-10 or 15-15-15 mix twice a month.
Cyclamen can benefit from summers growing outside in a protected spot in the garden where it receives early morning sun. Just be sure to bring the plant indoors before autumn frost. If you follow these steps, you’ll be the owner of a healthy, happy plant that brings winter color.
For more plant advice, contact the Plant Information Service at the Chicago Botanic Garden at plantinfo@chicagobotanic.org. Tim Johnson is senior director of horticulture at the Chicago Botanic Garden.