Where do you buy Cyclamen coum plants?

I find myself craving a Cyclamen coum plant, which would flower from January and very likely from December. Is this something that local garden centres might sell? Would Kew Gardens sell it? (I just checked, and it doesn't seem to be on Kew Gardens' list of plants for sale).

I feel like Rapunzel's mother, craving rampion from the witch's garden.

 

@groundbeetle I would expect most garden centres sell them, although finding them under the Christmas tat might be tricky. Online most of the bulb companies offer them and I would expect RHS plant sales would have them.

 

Beware of buying naked corms, though. Like snowdrops, they've likely dried out never to recover. If you can't find potted corms, it might be worth tracking down some seed and growing your own. They don't take all that long to get to flowering size.

 

I should think they are easily available in most garden centers at this time of year. I recently bought two in our local Home Bargains garden centre..

 

I have been trying to find out about growing cyclamen from seed. I was wondering if the seedlings and tiny young plants would be ok in the English winter outside? Where I am, urban heat island in the south of England, it almost never snows and the coldest it gets in January and February is about minus one degree centigrade for a very brief period of time, rarely long enough to snow, and mostly typically doesn't drop below about five degrees centigrade.

I did come across some information that winter is the growing season for Cyclamen coum, that is when it is in leaf and eventually flower, and in the summer it is just its underground corm. So I wondered if the small seedlings, once germinated, would be better off outside in UK winter, where they can get the most light? These are not house plants, and they might not like the lack of light indoors, and they might be better off where it is a bit colder? Obviously I would have to germinate the seeds indoors at about 15 degrees centigrade.

I have three plants of some Cyclamen hederifolium that I grew from seed, and one plant that I bought in a small pot. I can't remember exactly, but I must have planted the seeds in the early spring of 2020, so they would have mostly missed their autumn growing season and effectively only properly started growing in the autumn of 2020, and this autumn the seed-grown plants all have plenty of healthy leaves and one plant made one beautiful pink flower. The bought plant I must have got in the summer of 2019, and though it has flowered a bit and now making a lot of pretty leaves, it really isn't much ahead of the seed-grown Cyclamen hederifolium, and is taking years to properly get going, it didn't do much at all in its first autumn, just a few spindly flowers and a few leaves. They are all beautiful plants and seem incredibly tough, but I think I prefer the single flower on my seed-grown plant than those on the bought one.

Another thing is I remember during spring and early summer those small Cyclamen hederifolium seedlings got attacked a lot by aphids, and every day I brushed them off their leaves with a tiny paintbrush. I wonder if it would have been better to have started off the seeds later in the year when aphids are not such a problem, and the Cyclamen is in its growing season hence better able to repel pests?

 

@groundbeetle See her https://www.cyclamen.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Seed-Leaflet-with-WMK.pdf for information on growing from seed.
And here for info on C coum https://www.cyclamen.org/plants/species/cyclamen-coum/
I've used this website for information for the past few years and found it useful.
I've recently germinated a number of species and they are already forming small tubers; a bit leggy, but that's down to me.

 

Hi, I think C. coum and hederifolium are the two hardiest so as long as they're in a free-draining medium, winter cold isn't a problem I had both self-sowing in Northants which is/was a lot colder than where you are. Even C. persicum is hardier than it's given credit for. I've got a few seed-raised corms of C.p outside here and they've survived -12°C without a problem. A squib of soapy water gets rid of aphids quite effectively

 

I have obtained lots of different cyclamen seed via the Alpine Garden Society seed distribution. Because they have dried out before getting to me, they often take a bit longer to germinate. For example, last year's c. pseudibiricum and graecum have only emerged this autumn. But it's worth it, because in only a few years they will be flowering. I do keep the seed pots in a cold greenhouse, so I can get to the seedlings before the slugs....