Gadenin日本語Get the appThe year runs backwards from what people expect
The florist cyclamen comes from a climate with cool wet winters and hot dry summers. Its growing season is therefore the cold half of the year, and its rest is the hot half. It leafs up in autumn, flowers all winter, winds down in spring and spends summer underground as a dormant tuber with nothing above the surface at all. That is the normal, healthy cycle, and nothing about it is a sign of ill health.
Because almost every other pot plant in a house does the opposite, a cyclamen turning yellow just as the days lengthen looks alarming. Most plants are thrown away at this point, watered harder in an attempt to save them, or moved into more light, and all three responses make the situation worse. The plant is not asking for help; it is closing down on schedule, and the correct response is to reduce water and let it finish.
The timing is not a fixed date and depends far more on temperature than on the calendar. A plant in a genuinely cold room may still be flowering when a plant in a warm one has been dormant for six weeks. Warmth brings dormancy on earlier, which is another reason a cold position extends the display.
Dormancy or death: how to tell
The distinction matters because the treatments are opposite. A dormant plant needs to be dried off; a rotting one needs the affected tissue removed and may still be savable; a dry one needs water. All three look like a collapsed cyclamen from across the room, and all three are separated by two checks: the state of the leaf bases and the firmness of the tuber.
| Sign | Going dormant | Rotting | Simply dry |
|---|---|---|---|
| How the leaves change | Yellow evenly, oldest and outermost first, over weeks | Collapse while still green, from the center outwards | Whole plant wilts flat in a day, color unchanged |
| Base of the leaf stalks | Dry, papery, detaches with a clean twist | Soft, brown, wet, smells sour | Firm and green |
| The tuber when pressed | Hard and firm | Gives under a thumb, may be hollow | Firm |
| The compost | Drying out slowly, plant using less each week | Wet and heavy | Bone dry, pot very light |
| Time of year | Spring into early summer | Any time, usually midwinter in a warm room | Any time |
| What to do | Reduce water, then stop; move to summer rest | Remove rotted stalks, stop watering, cool airy place | Soak from below for twenty minutes |
Putting the plant to rest
Do not cut a cyclamen down while it is still green. Every day a yellowing leaf stays attached, it is moving sugars back into the tuber, and that reserve is what next autumn's leaves and flowers are built from. A plant stripped early goes into summer with a smaller tuber and comes back weaker. Let the leaves yellow at their own pace and take each one off only once it has gone soft and pale and detaches with a twist.
Wind the watering down rather than stopping abruptly. Stretch the interval from weekly to fortnightly, then to a light drink once every three weeks, and stop altogether when the last leaves have gone. Stop feeding as soon as the first leaves yellow. The whole process from first yellow leaf to bare pot typically takes four to six weeks.
- Stop feeding at the first yellow leaf Feed encourages soft new growth that the plant is not going to be able to support through the warm months, and that growth is where rot starts. The moment the first leaves yellow evenly, feeding is finished for the year.
- Lengthen the gaps between waterings Move from every five to seven days out to every ten days, then every two to three weeks, then nothing. Follow the plant: as it loses leaves it uses less water, and the pot stays heavy longer, which tells you when to stretch the interval again.
- Twist off leaves as they finish Take each leaf when it is fully yellow and its stalk has softened, gripping low at the tuber and twisting. Leave anything still green or still firmly attached. Clear the fallen debris off the compost surface as you go.
- Move the bare pot to a shaded airy place Once nothing is left above the compost, put the pot on its side or upright somewhere shaded, dry and airy: a shed, a garage, under a bench, the back of a cool cupboard. On its side sheds any rain if the spot is outdoors.
- Leave it completely dry for two to three months No water at all through the hottest part of the year. The tuber shrinks slightly and that is normal. Check it once a month by pressing: it should stay firm. A tuber that has gone soft was rotting before dormancy started.
Restarting in late summer
The plant wakes when nights begin to cool, in the second half of summer or early autumn depending on where you are. Bring the pot out, tip the tuber from the old compost, and look at it: it should be firm, with the old roots dry and brittle and a slightly dished top where the growing points are. Rub off the dead roots, keep the fat living ones if any remain, and repot into fresh free draining compost with grit or perlite mixed in.
Position the tuber with its top level with or just above the compost surface, never buried. A tuber sunk below the surface collects water in its crown every time the pot is watered and rots within weeks. Use a pot only slightly wider than the tuber, leaving about half an inch (1 cm) of compost all round; cyclamen flower better slightly cramped, and a large pot holds wet compost the roots cannot reach.
Then water once, thoroughly from below, and put the pot in a cool, bright, well ventilated place. Keep it barely damp, watering perhaps every ten to fourteen days, until the first leaf buds appear on the crown, which usually takes two to four weeks. Once leaves are clearly growing, move to a regular watering routine and start feeding again about a month later.
Not every plant behaves this way indoors. A cyclamen kept genuinely cool all year may keep some leaves through summer and never go fully dormant. Do not force it. If it still has healthy green leaves and a firm tuber in midsummer, simply keep it lightly watered and shaded and let it carry straight on into the next season.
What to record
Dormancy is where records earn their keep, because a resting cyclamen is an unlabelled pot of dry compost that looks like rubbish, and it is out of sight for months. Note the date the last leaf came off, exactly where you put the pot, and the date you intend to restart it. Set that restart note somewhere you will actually see it in late summer.
Also record the firmness of the tuber at each monthly check and its rough size. A tuber that measures larger than last summer means the plant fed itself well through the winter and the position was right; one that has shrunk means it either lost its leaves too early or was stripped before it had finished withdrawing its reserves.
Over several years these notes turn into something genuinely useful: the spread between the earliest and latest restart you have tried, and which produced the earliest flowers. Cyclamen tubers live for decades and get larger and more floriferous each year, so a plant you record properly at year two is a considerably better plant at year six.