In search of perfect plants

Gardening

08 September 2009 00:00

Perfect plants. Do such a things exist? Geoff Stebbings says the dimunitive gem Cyclamen hederifolium is the so good every garden should have one.

Plant breeders have tried for centuries and all gardeners want it – the perfect plant. Of course there will never be such a thing, though what I’m most often asked for by gardeners is a planting suggestion for a shady place with poor soil and often very windy. The plant should be an evergreen shrub that races up to about 1.5m (5ft) in a year, then stops growing, flowers for many months, has fragrance and is resistant to disease and pests. Well, you’re not alone, but the sad fact is that there is nothing that quite matches this description.

But if there was, we would get bored with it – after all, gardening is as much to do with our battle against nature as working with it. We got quite close to this ideal in the Sixties and Seventies with heathers and conifers – and we soon got bored with those! 

But back to the search for perfect plants. There are a few that come close. I think one species of hardy cyclamen is so good that every garden should have it.
This diminutive gem is Cyclamen hederifolium. Perhaps it’s not quite perfect – it only grows 8cm (3in) high, so it’s not going to be an effective screen or hedge – but it ticks all the boxes in so many other ways. 

Delicate and perfectly formed
It looks so delicate, with its perfectly-formed pink or white flowers that push through the bare soil in August and September. Then, as the last flowers are dropping and the stalks start to coil to lodge the seedpods in the soil, the beautifully marbled leaves appear. In every possible combination of silver grey and dark green, these form a close fitting carpet over the soil that withstands all the cold and wet that autumn, winter and spring can throw at them.

It will grow in dense shade under trees, including evergreens, it will grow in light soils and in clay, it will thrive in the rockery, and it will grow among and under shrubs and herbaceous plants.

In time, the tubers, just below the surface, can become huge. Once you have a few, they will produce seedlings, though these are often sown on top of the parent tuber and thus need to be moved. So within a few years you can have a carpet of cyclamen.

Be it pink or white and often scented, they are addictive.

I have to confess that there is one thing about this plant that I don’t like. Although the sight of the first flowers are beautiful and make me smile, my happiness is tinged with sadness. They inform me that summer is over and autumn is on its way.

Buying Cyclamen

Always try to buy plants in growth, in pots. Dried tubers do not always grow after planting. If you do buy tubers, check they are firm and not shrivelled. Small tubers, about 5cm (2in) across, are best. Huge, warty tubers will not have been grown on nurseries and may be wild collected. Tubers should be planted as soon as possible, with the shoots up, about 2.5cm (1in) deep and 15cm (6in) apart.

Also look out for Cyclamen coum. This is another hardy gem with more rounded leaves, but it flowers in late winter. Mix the two for a long-lasting display. 

Geoff Stebbings trained at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew He was a Head Gardener before he became a garden writer and has written six books. He has a small garden, crammed with plants and three allotments. Geoff is editor of Garden Answers. For advice and inspiration each month don't miss your copy.

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