Moonhowl said:Yes, there are frost hardy cyclamen species.
http://www.hardycyclamens.com/...
William said:Keith, have you tried any of the frost hardy species already in the more commonly available colors? If you have, please just ignore the rest of this, but otherwise I'd like to offer a few ideas to get Cyclamen hederifolium better established (I don't grow any other) :
If you plant Cyclamen hederifolium from dry tubers the best time to do so are in summer or early autumn when they are dormant. They do start to grow very early. Also I think it's best to ignore any advice about planting deeply to improve hardiness of Cyclamen hederifolium. My result from deep planting in ordinary garden soil was disappointing, with poor flowering and vigour and eventually the death of the plants. Since then I learned to plant these rather shallow under a deciduous tree and the difference in flowering and growth is already in its second year rather striking. The fallen leaves, if not too deeply forms a nice natural mulch, far superior to deep planting. I have mine under a European Beech tree. Apparently they can easily rot if they don't get dryish conditions during summer and from what I read this is the most usual reason for failure with them, not the cold. The tree will help with this, sucking excessive moisture out of the soil.
I hope you will find the colors you are looking for as I know that they can be a bit hard to find, especially the darker pink ones. I have some plans to get these myself, even if I perhaps will need to import them (the selection here in Sweden isn't great). I think they would be really lovely in a mix
Edit - Spelling
valleylynn said:Hi there Keith.
So far the only true red cyclamen are the florist's cyclamen, which are not hardy.
I am trying one under a tree this year, with hellebore leaves providing a canopy, hope it winters over. I am in zone 8 so might have a chance of it making it. I will let you know. I just went out and looked at it. We have had freezing weather into the low twenties for about 2 weeks now and the plant is looking good, as are the seedlings that came up when the plant went to seed this summer.
keithp2012 said:
The problem is none are labeled, I don't know how to tell Cold Hardy from not Hardy by looking?
William said:
Not quite sure what you mean exactly. To know if it's cold hardy or not, you would have to identify what species it is first. But even if you know the species, there would actually be some differences regarding the actual hardiness depending on where the bulbs/seeds originate from. If you for instance planted wild collected bulbs (which you of course shouldn't do, but if you hypothetically did) then the hardiness would be rather questionable as they become much better adopted to garden condition after a few generations of seed sowing.
I'd however assume any cyclamen that is sold unlabelled to be a florist Cyclamen, Cyclamen persicum. The smallest of these have better hardiness than the larger ones and they can take some frost temporarily, but they would unfortunately need an exceptionally mild winter to get through winter outside in a colder area.