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Over the next few months, large-flowered florists’ cyclamen will start to appear in garden centres and supermarkets. They may be bright and cheery but they’re not the most subtle of the
breed. They are often planted in window boxes in London and those who live outside the capital are tempted to do the same, only to discover that they perish come a sharp frost. For the
florists’ cyclamen are not fully hardy and only the heat of the city encourages them to flower through winter. But there are other cyclamen that are as tough as old boots and which, when
planted out in the garden, will take the worst that the weather can throw at them without turning a hair or batting an eyelid. The first to flower in autumn is the plant I used to buy as a
nipper, Cyclamen neapolitanum. One of the first Latin names I learned, it reminded me of Neapolitan ice cream. But then the botanists told us to call it Cyclamen hederifolium which, instead
of indicating its country of origin as the previous name did, tells us that its leaves are shaped like ivy. They are attractively marbled, too, but the autumn flowers are the real draw for
this plant and they always catch me out – appearing before I expect them to and reminding me that winter isn’t far away. The pale pink reflex-petalled flowers erupt in a miniature forest
before the leaves. They seem so delicate that they would wither away if you sneezed on them; but they’re tough little blighters. Buy them growing in pots now and plant them 1ft apart so that
the fat corms sit only fractionally below the surface of the soil – they don’t like being buried too deeply. When these flowers fade, those of Cyclamen coum will follow in the dead of
winter, proving that if you want blooms when most of the garden is asleep, cyclamen are the best choice.