Cyclamen is one of the rare plants that bloom from late autumn to spring. Therefore, on New Year's Eve, entire fields of cyclamen appear on all major sales and trading floors - from Auchan to OBI, and at a very modest price.
These cyclamens are grown by manufacturers specifically for the New Year and Christmas holidays. And they are intended to please us for a very short time - 3-4 weeks. Most plants then die.
Many disputes on the network are about the origin of cyclamens and their life expectancy. There is an opinion that "Dutch" (read European) cyclamens do not live long, as they are grown on hormonal drugs, stimulants and vitamins. Indeed, manufacturers have tried to ensure that these beautiful flowers bloom en masse and are delivered to New Year's markets.
But it's not just hormones or stimulants. We must be aware that these flowers were really grown like a potted plant to temporarily decorate the holiday. We dress up the Christmas tree only for a short period of winter holidays, and then disassemble and put it in a box until the next New Year. So cyclamens should be considered as an inexpensive decoration during the holidays.
Can cyclamens be preserved for a long time? Yes, you can, but not in room conditions. It's time to discard the stereotypes that everything planted in pots will live for many years, just water. It isn't. Cyclamen is a delicate and capricious plant.
You are deceived when they say: "it is not difficult to grow cyclamens, it is enough to know what they require..."
The difficulty is that cyclamens are very demanding plants. Units of florists are able to grow them for years. First of all, we, people and cyclamens require completely different conditions of existence: when we are cold, cyclamen is just right. We freeze if at home the thermometer shows 20 degrees and run to complain to the communal workers and roll the children. By the way, the most useful temperature for little kids is 18-20 degrees, terrifying our grandmothers, for cyclamens - heat.
So, cyclamens need coolness. Not airing from time to time, but a constant temperature. And imagine it is 13-15 degrees. Kholodina! The only place in a normal apartment is an insulated balcony or loggia. If there is enough light: east, west or south, then at this temperature cyclamens will bloom for a very long time and delight you.
This is provided you water the cyclamens properly. The fact is that the humidity at a temperature of 13-15 degrees Celsius is quite high, no spraying! But the soil in the pots dries up very slowly. Therefore, you need to water cyclamens carefully, in no case, preventing contact with the tuber and the base of the leaves, otherwise they easily rot. Water only around the edge of the pot. By the time of the next watering, the earth (according to the sensations of the fingers) should be slightly moist in the depths of the pot and dry on top. At the same time, in the upper layer, the earth should dry out no longer than in two days. If it dries longer, then you need to water less. If it dries in a day - a little more.
The water requirements for cyclamens are simple: room temperature (keep the water in a bottle in the same room) and not too hard. No need to dance with tambourines, boiling, filtering. Cyclamen is able to tolerate moderate water hardness. You can water in a pallet. The main thing is that the soil never dries up completely.
Flowering cyclamens are fed every two weeks with complex mineral fertilizer for flowering plants. As soon as the number of buds began to decrease, feeding should be stopped.
When cyclamen finishes flowering, it gradually loses its leaves and goes dormant. If the cyclamen itself does not go into a state of rest, then from the beginning of April simply reduce watering, and then completely stop.
This leaves one bare tuber. It can be stored almost completely dry. At a storage temperature of about 12 degrees, watering the tuber is not required. It doesn't even have to be taken out of the pot - just put the pot on its side. Ideally, cyclamen in the first decade of May can be taken out into the garden, the threat of frost has already passed and the most suitable temperature for cyclamen.
Since the cyclamen tuber does not sink into the ground during planting, most of it remains visible, you can notice new growth points at the end of the dormant period. Gradually woken up, the tuber builds up new leaves. Irrigation is resumed, gradually increasing with the growth of new leaves. It is better to transplant tubers into fresh land in late summer - early autumn, into a slightly larger pot, burying no deeper than half. If you want to multiply cyclamen, then you can divide the tuber, cutting so that 2 growth buds and roots remain on each part. At the same time, you need to plant plots in small pots .
You can bring cyclamens into the house when the temperature outside begins to drop below 10 degrees. And place cyclamen in a room where the temperature is not higher than 15 degrees.
If the cyclamen does not provide a period of rest in coolness and dryness, it may continue to grow, but the bulbs are depleted and the next bloom will be very frail or none. The plant will not die this year, so the next...
What to look for when buying cyclamen for the New Year
- Buy plants that are in the store in cool conditions (refrigerated shelves).
- Buy cyclamens whose potted ground isn't too raw and the tuber isn't buried in the ground.
- Buy not the largest copies, it is better to buy 2-3 pots of small cyclamens than one, but large.
- Choose cyclamens, whose pot is spacious enough, not cramped. The optimal distance from the tuber to the wall of the pot is 3-4 cm. If less, then the plant will not last long, or it will have to be urgently transplanted.
- Do not buy plants with yellowing leaves, with dark spots on the leaves.
- Do not believe the seller if he says about slightly wilting leaves that the plants were simply not watered at the weekend. It most likely dies from waterlogging.
- Do not buy cyclamens from the store if it has been sprayed with water, ostensibly from the heat.
Cyclamen tuber as a cure for runny nose
After it became clear that cyclamen is not your plant (there are no suitable conditions, tired, dies, etc.), you can remove the tuber and prepare a medicine for a runny nose from it, which is very effective, I must say.
- Clean the tuber from the ground, trim the roots, rinse and peel.
- The tuber must be grated on a fine grater, then wiped through a sieve to squeeze out the juice. By the way, not much juice is obtained from one tuber, only 3-4 tablespoons .
- This juice must be diluted with boiled water in a ratio of 1:10. If you dilute the juice right away, you get too much medicine. Therefore, I advise freezing freshly squeezed cyclamen juice in ice molds of the smallest size.
If necessary, it can be thawed, diluted with water and fresh solution can be instilled 1 drop into each nasal passage.
Never bury undiluted cyclamen juice - it contains poisonous substances. In diluted form, they treat us, killing microbes, in concentrated form and when used inside, they poison us.