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!