Hardy Cyclamen
Cyclamen hederifolium
Flowers in September under trees where little else will, and every care note it has amounts to leaving it be.
- Type
- Flower · Perennial
- Botanical family
- Mixed / other
- Foliage color
- Green
- Flower color
- Pink
- Sunlight
- Partial through to full shade.
- Watering
- No watering needed.
- Feeding
- No feeding needed.
- Frost tolerant
- Yes
- Flowering
- September
- Pruning
- Leave it entirely alone.
- Mar–May Growing
- May–Sep Leaf Fall
- Sep–Sep Spring Growth
- Sep–Dec Flowering
- Jan–Mar Flowering
- Plant spacing
- 7.9 in
- In-row spacing
- 7.9 in
- Between rows
- 9.8 in
- Square-foot density
- Not suited to SFG
- Root system
- Swollen storage roots
- Working depth
- 8–20 in
- Can reach
- 3 ft down where the soil allows
- Spread
- 8–12 in across, about 1–1.5× the width of the plant
- Shallowest pot
- 14 in of soil
The fat roots are the larder and the thin ones do the feeding. Lift them or mulch them deeply where the ground freezes hard, and handle them by the crown: a snapped storage root rots rather than heals.
A flat tuber that sits at or barely under the surface, and rots if it is buried. The hardy species root from the top of the tuber, so a light leaf-mould dressing after flowering feeds them exactly where it should.
The habit is Hardy Cyclamen’s own; the figures are what that habit usually comes to at this size, not a measurement of this species. Roots follow the soil either way: a compacted pan, a high water table or heavy clay stops them well short of any of it, and deep open ground lets them go further.
- Cats and dogs
- Recorded toxic
Recorded as toxic to cats and dogs by ASPCA.
Genus-level row covering our Cyclamen hederifolium. The tuber holds the most.
Beneficial predators that hunt this plant's pests — grow their favourite flowers nearby to recruit them. companion plant
- Beneficial nematodes Steinernema & Heterorhabditis spp.Hunts Vine weevil
Microscopic worms watered onto damp soil that hunt down soil-dwelling grubs and release a bacterium that kills them within days. Timing is the whole thing: warm, damp soil and a small target grub, which means late summer for most of what they are used against.
- Frogs & toads AnuraHunts Vine weevil
A resident toad works the beds every night for slugs, cutworms, and weevils. Recruit them with water — even a sunken basin pond — plus damp shade and an upturned-pot toad house; skip the slug pellets that poison their prey.
- Ground beetle CarabidaeHunts Vine weevil
Fast, glossy night hunters that patrol the soil surface for slugs, cutworms, and root-fly larvae. Give them daytime cover — thick perennial edges, stepping stones, a log — and skip the tillage that wrecks their burrows.
- Hedgehog Erinaceus europaeusHunts Vine weevil
A European animal, and worth saying so plainly: there are no hedgehogs in North America, and the ally that does the same night shift here is the toad, the opossum or the ground beetle. Where they do occur, cut a gap in the fence and skip the pellets.
Snowdrops, Hellebores, Ferns, Anemone nemorosa
Green-leaved flowers, like this one.
The Cottage Garden Companion — the gardener's herbarium at cottagegardencompanion.com