storing winter-growing bulbs during dormancy

Peter Taggart petersirises@gmail.com
Fri, 26 Oct 2012 12:57:55 PDT
These techniques are familiar to me, they are not suitable for my
conditions Rodger. The version which I know is where there is a depth of
gravel in the bottom of the pot, and the pot is stood in a flooded try. The
idea is that the roots will dive into the wet gravel if they want water.

However As I recently pointed out, the roots of different cyclamen species
vary enormously. The thin fibrous roots on the repandum group can indeed go
quite deep, but the roots on C gaecum resemble boot laces or thin versions
of the tap roots found on Fraxinus - (not the tap roots found on carrots
Jane). These roots are designed to dive into fissures in rocks. C
rolfsianum can be left very dry indeed for six months in the Summer and so
may alpinum, mirabile and intaminatum, even in trays which are only two
inches deep. Intaminatum is better allowed to grow through the Summer. I
have found C alpinum especially sensitive to saturated conditions though it
is happy to have heavy summer rain, and C persicum suffers more than most
from being too dry.
One thing which most Cyclamen do seem to have in common is that any hint of
water logging -especially when they are not in leaf -will kill them.
Peter (UK)

On Fri, Oct 26, 2012 at 7:48 PM, Rodger Whitlock <totototo@telus.net> wrote:

> On 25 Oct 2012, at 4:57, David Retief wrote:
> Summer dormant cyclamen species have very deeply penetrating roots which
> continue to imbibe a little moisture all summer, keeping the tubers turgid.
> These do well in very deep pots sitting in shallow saucers of water all
> summer.
>
>



More information about the pbs mailing list