Gadenin日本語Get the appHow the plant produces flowers
Buds do not form on the stems. They form down in the crown of the tuber, packed among the leaf stalks, and each one pushes up on its own stem, uncoiling as it rises, until it clears the leaves and flips its petals back. On a plant in good condition you can part the leaves and see a dozen or more buds at every stage, from pinhead to half open, waiting their turn. That reserve is what makes a cyclamen flower for four or five months rather than three weeks.
This matters because it explains the lag. What you do to a cyclamen today shows up in flowers three to six weeks later. A plant that has stopped flowering was mistreated a month ago, and a plant you correct today will not respond immediately. It also explains why the crown is so important: everything that will ever flower on that plant is sitting in the crown, and anything that rots or dries there is flowers you have lost.
Look into the crown regularly with the leaves parted. A crown thick with pale buds means the plant is on course. A crown with leaf stalks but nothing between them means bud production has already stopped, and you have a few weeks of existing flowers left to work out why.
The four things that stop the buds
Almost every case of a cyclamen refusing to flower comes down to one of four causes, and they are easy to tell apart because each leaves a different mark on the plant. Work through them in order; warmth is by a wide margin the most common.
| Cause | What the plant looks like | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Room too warm | Buds dry and shrivel before opening, leaves soft, plant looks tired | Move to 50 to 60F (10 to 16C); expect new buds in three to four weeks |
| Too little light | Stems long and floppy, buds stall half formed, leaf stalks stretched | Move onto a bright windowsill in a cool room |
| Spent flowers and leaves left on | Brown mush in the crown, new buds browning where they touch it | Twist out every dead stalk at the base, weekly |
| Starved after months of flowering | Small pale flowers, leaves yellowing evenly, growth thin | Feed a high potassium liquid feed at half strength every two weeks |
| Genuine dormancy in spring | Leaves yellowing from the outside in, no new buds, pot drying slowly | Nothing is wrong; stop feeding and let it go to rest |
Twist, do not cut, and take the leaves off the same way
Cyclamen stems are hollow and soft. Cutting one leaves a wet stub standing in the middle of the crown, and that stub does not dry and seal, it rots, and the rot spreads sideways into the buds packed around it. This is the mechanism behind most midwinter collapses in plants that were otherwise being looked after well. The whole stalk has to come out, cleanly, from the point where it joins the tuber.
The plant is built to allow this. Trace the stem down to the crown with your fingers, take it low, and pull with a twisting motion. A spent stalk detaches with a small snap and comes away complete, leaving a dry point rather than a wound. A stalk that resists is not ready and should be left. Do this to faded flowers as soon as the petals go limp or the stem starts to bend, and to any leaf that turns yellow, at the same time.
Removing yellow leaves is not tidying. Each one is a route for gray mold into a crowded crown, and taking them out also opens the center to air and light, which is exactly where a cyclamen needs both. Go over the plant once a week through the flowering season; it takes under a minute.
- Pick the plant up and look into the crown Hold the pot at eye level and part the leaves with your fingers so you can see the surface of the tuber. Work in good light. Anything brown, soft or collapsed in there is coming out now.
- Follow each dead stem to its base Run finger and thumb down the stalk until they reach the tuber. Grip there, not halfway up, or the hollow stem will simply snap and leave the base behind.
- Twist and pull in one movement Rotate the stalk half a turn while pulling steadily upward. It releases from the tuber with a small click. If it tears or resists strongly, leave it another few days rather than forcing it.
- Clear the debris off the compost surface Pick out fallen petals and leaf fragments lying on the compost. Left there in a cool damp pot they grow gray mold, which then jumps to the living stalks above.
Feeding, and what to write down
A cyclamen bought in flower has enough feed in its compost for perhaps six weeks, and after that it is running on reserves in the tuber. Start a half strength high potassium liquid feed, the kind sold for tomatoes or for flowering pot plants, every two weeks from about a month after you bring it home, and keep it up through the flowering season. Apply it in the water you bottom water with, so it goes in from below like everything else. Stop feeding entirely once the leaves begin to yellow in spring, because feeding a plant that is trying to go dormant only encourages soft growth that rots.
High nitrogen feed is the wrong choice. It produces a big lush plant with abundant leaves, a crowded crown that traps damp air, and noticeably fewer flowers, which is the opposite of what you want from a plant grown for a five month display.
Keep a short record for each plant: the week you brought it home, the week the first flower opened, the week the last one did, the room it stood in, and how many times you fed it. Cyclamen are long lived and get better with age, so a plant you keep for five years will accumulate a useful history. The most valuable single entry is the date flowering stopped, because comparing it against where the plant stood tells you next autumn whether the position was cold enough.