Cyclamen coum Beats Snowdrops As the Earliest Sign of Spring-To-Come

Don't you love it when snowdrops, those shy, sweetly nodding little bulbs, begin to bloom? It means that in the depths of winter, the spring processional has begun. Starting in January, one kind of bulb after another pokes up through winter-crusted ground to unfurl leaves, stems, and finally flowers.

Bulbs are so inauspicious-looking when planted, really nothing more than knuckly lumps of potential, yet they're the bridge from winter wet and snow to summer sunshine - a bridge that reassures us that we'll cross over ourselves into a fresh, new gardening season.

But even earlier than the heralding snowdrops, you can count on an equally sweet looking and really more dependable flower to brighten winter days.  As I cleared away faded lily stems and the collapsed muck of ligularia on our spectacularly warm New Year's Day, I found tiny Cyclamen coum blooming amid the dead leaves and debris. Shorter than snowdrops and as delicate-looking, they weather the worst of winter to bloom as one year ends and the next begins. Their heart-shaped, marbled leaves are  as showy as the little pink and white flowers. Pure, snowy white cyclamen like the one below are my favorite, for they look so clean and promising flowering away in my still-very-messy winter garden...Cyclamen have the tidy habit of spreading slowly yet persistently to colonize the ground beneath trees and shrubs, then obligingly fade away during the summer so showier flowers can take their place.

These little beauties were gifts from Richie Steffen at the Miller Botanical Garden, so they're probably some special kind of cyclamen - I've long since forgotten their cultivar name, which doesn't mean I appreciate their brave flowering any less....Richie - if you can tell us which these are, we'd appreciate it....

Comments

[Ruth]

Val, my first coums are just poking little faces out of the winter muck--what a great sight for gray-wearied eyes! I met a local grower of these gems last fall at a plant sale at North Seattle Community College, and he is having an open house at the end of the month. Here's the info:

Bouquet Banque Nursery Cyclamen Open House

An acre of coldframes are filled with thousands of hardy cyclamen; a portion of the proceeds will benefit 'Baskets for Life.dk" African micro-finance project;

10 a.m.-4 p.m.
Saturday, January 28, 2012 - Sunday, January 29, 2012
Bouquet Banque Nursery
8220 State Ave., Marysville, WA 98270

for more info, contact Bill Roeder at 360-659-4938

I'm planning a trek to see these in bloom, and choose a few more for the garden. It was hard to choose from the descriptions, and Bill suggested coming up in January to see the blooms.

[Andrea]

How pretty! It seems like winter just started here and yet, while walking through the yard, I noticed daffodils coming up already!

[Chris]

Little beauties, is right! What a sweet, lil plant! Guess what else is popping up already?? PoP it weeds! Aaack! Early signs of spring for sure!! :)