Written by Catherine Wissner, retired University of Wyoming Laramie County Extension Horticulturist and Laramie County Master Gardener.
A beautiful flowering holiday house plant that starts to show up after Christmas for Valentine’s Day is the Cyclamen. With its very attractive, semi-heart-shaped leaves, typically marked with a white or silver pattern on a green background. The flowers have five curved back slightly twist petals. The petals are joined at a short colorful tube at the base of the flower. Flowers are suspended above the foliage on slender stems that resemble butterflies. They are a small plant, about 8 inches tall, and as wide, they don’t take up much space, but make a big colorful statement.
Cyclamen flowers come in pink, red, white, or lavender colors. These pretty plants make an ideal gift or just a nice addition to one’s house plant collection. Cyclamens will keep blooming for a couple months, perking up winter days, but how to keep them going?
A Mediterranean climate plant, they have different care needs from most house plants. Keeping them from playing dead, a few tips: First, they need cool day temperatures of 55 to 65 degrees, 50 degrees at night. Find a cool spot in the home as warmer home temperatures cause the leaves to start yellowing, wilt, and while the plant wants to play dead, it’s not.
These warm house temps trigger the plant into thinking it’s going into a Mediterranean summer thus dormancy, the plant starts to die back. What to do to keep these beautiful plants going?
As typical of many house plants, cyclamens also need higher humidity along with moist soil. Cyclamen should be watered thoroughly when the soil looks and feels dry on the surface. Avoid watering the crown or center of the plant, this can cause it to rot. Water from the bottom and let it stand in water for 15 minutes is best.
When the leaves start to drop off, and they will, reduce water and stop using fertilizer. Move a now-dormant cyclamen to a cool, low light, house location for the summer. Don’t over water while leafless, just an enough water to keep it slightly damp.
In mid-Fall, still keeping it in a cool, but now bright, location, start to water again, using a low nitrogen fertilizer to wake up your cyclamen. It should start to grow new leaves and hopefully bloom again.
Follow us on our social media:
