Potted cyclamen will flower again with these simple tips

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Q. A potted cyclamen I was given has bloomed at a cool window for weeks now. What should I do when it stops flowering? Is it possible, and not too difficult, to keep this plant growing after all the blooms fade? If so, will it flower again?

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A. Potted cyclamen are often discarded or composted when the flowers stop and the plant begins to die back, but they can be kept to flower again.

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I bought a lovely cyclamen in bloom last fall. Kept cool and watered, it flowered over the winter and then, as cyclamen do, eventually stopped blooming and began dying back.

The flowering season is fall to spring. Warmth triggers dormancy.

As the plant began dying down, I kept it cleaned of withered flower and leaf stems as I reduced watering. As temperatures outdoors ceased dipping below 10 C at night, I set the pot in the light shade of a potting table’s lower shelf. Through the summer I gave the pot an occasional light watering, just enough to keep the tuber from shrivelling.

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Late in the summer, as temperatures began cooling, I began checking the pot for new sprouts. As soon as they appeared, I replaced a top layer of potting mix with fresh and began watering more regularly. As flower buds began to show, I brought the plant in to a cool window to bloom.

The plant is still flowering, and new flower stems continue to emerge. I’ll set the potted tuber outdoors again in the spring, in the same place, and watch for fresh growth late in the summer.

At that point, I’ll repot the tuber — something I did not do last year. As a general rule the tubers need repotting only every two years. Simply settle a cyclamen tuber into a new pot at the same depth it was in the original pot.

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