Tuesday, July 5

Raising expectations

Some of you may vaguely remember that I mentioned that I was going to try to grow some cyclamen from seed.

I bought a packet of indoor cyclamen called Laser and also bought a packet of an outdoor variety called Coum.

By 30 May, six of the eight seeds sown had germinated which was amazing enough but in the end all eight seeds germinated. When I first sowed the seeds I’d have been happy if I had only ended up with one plant.

On 31 March I sowed the seeds in John Innes seed compost after soaking them. The instructions said soak in tepid water for 24 hours but I have no idea how I was meant to keep the water tepid for that long.  It was tepid when the seeds were popped into the water but hardly when they came out. Another problem was that wet seeds tend to stick together and to fingers so maybe I should have dried them on kitchen paper before sowing. 

Light apparently helps the seeds to germinate so they were not covered in compost just a layer of vermiculite. The seed tray was placed in a polythene bag as the instructions dictated that everything had to be kept moist. The seeds were then placed in our Indoor Growing Garden.
A newly germinated seedling sends up just one cyclamen shaped leaf and then tends to produce a tiny corms before more leaves are produced. 

Being sure there were no other seeds waiting to germinate I decided to pot the seedlings up. Now I have eight small cyclamen plants planted in fibre pots. The pots have been placed back under the grow light in the spare room so that I can keep a close eye on them. 
As for the cyclamen coum - there were far more seeds in the packet but so far only three have germinated. As this is a plant that flowers from late winter into early spring I wonder whether the seeds will take longer to germinate so I’ll just leave them and see what happens. Funny I’d have been happy with three seedlings when I first started but now I want more!

10 comments:

  1. Success. It's great when your results surpass your expectations.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Very interesting. I used to have some cyclamen but I grew them from corms, not seeds. Hope yours go on to be big healthy plants. I always associate cyclamen with Christmas. They do brighten things up a bit in the gloomy winter weather.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Exciting! They will be giving you many blooms.

    ReplyDelete
  4. It is Jo, but the problem is then your expectations are higher - never satisfied!

    They really do brighten a time when it is gloomy Mark.

    I really hope so Diana

    ReplyDelete
  5. Oh Sue... I am jealous! Thanks, I'm inspired to have a go now too. Congratulations!!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Very intersting plant! Hope to see many blooms on them!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Have a go Shirl - it's always exciting to try new things!

    Don't worry Malar if they flower they will start on my blog!

    ReplyDelete
  8. How fabulous! I didn't know you could grow cyclamen from seed, I will have to remember that. I love the way they just put up one leaf while they form the corm.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Having never grown them I don't know how difficult to germinate they are but I think any success when growing as Ia Great success and you should be very pleased with yourself!!

    ReplyDelete
  10. I didn't either Janet 'til I spotted them in the seed catalogue.

    I am quite pleased Tanya but now just hope they develop into good plants and don't fail at the last minute.

    ReplyDelete

Thank you for visiting and leaving a comment - it is great to hear from you and know that there are people out there actually reading what I write! Come back soon.
(By the way any comments just to promote a commercial site, or any comments not directly linked to the theme of my blog, will be deleted)
I am getting quite a lot of spam. It is not published and is just deleted. I have stopped sifting through it and just delete any that ends up in my spam folder in one go so I am sorry if one of your messages is deleted accidentally.
Comments to posts over five days old are all moderated.