Cyclamen - why are the pink flowers turning white?

So I bought a couple of potted cyclamen plants a month or so ago - one had flowers of a partially light pink/white colour, the other had flowers that were a much deeper pink and white.

Now though the flowers are almost completely white, both older ones and new buds.

I'm certain that they weren't dyed, so maybe the plants are lacking some nutrient? I only water them as required (but not too much) and they looking pretty healthy.

 

Light and lack of certain nutrients in the compost. Having flowered, the next season should present them as normal. Colours available, include, pink shades, red, white and yellow. Some have frilled petals.

 

I have/have had them n all colours, including striped and frilly, except yellow and have that on my list to get.

 

Thank you. So with the right nutrients should I be able to get them back to their original shades of pink?

 

Probably not this season. Once died down and then regrown next time, they should be back to normal. What might be termed colour pigmentation in the petals of some flowers, can at times react to various levels/strengths of light especially sunlight. Similar colour changes are often found with. Lilium Stargazer. Here the question, 'Can lilies change colour? Simple answer is NO. The DNA holds the codes for the plant. This can only be changed via GM (Gene Modification) Hope this helps.

 

Just try stronger light levels, I'm guessing they have a way to go yet until they die down at the end of winter.

 

Thanks to both of you, I appreciate the replies. Okay, I'll leave it and see how things go. Are there any particular nutrients that I should be feeding it?

 

I dont actually feed mine, I think they prefer to struggle a bit regarding nutrient.
A cool but airy atmosphere is best, they hate being used as a houseplant, most houses are too warm.

 

Noted, thank you.

 

Going through my photos, I found a few pictures of some of mine ...





They are okay outside here in the winter and have even seeded themselves in the ground beneath.

 

Thanks, very nice photos, yours look a lot better than mine.

 

Last year around late summer I bought some deep red flowered Cyclamen plants,cheaply from Morrisons. They were so beautiful, and flowered all winter. Now they are in bud again, and the buds look white. The flowers might still open red, I will wait and see. These are the florists' variety of Cyclamen persicum, sold as house plants but I would never try to keep them in the house, they hate it and have always coped outdoors with the very mild winters we have.

 

I just found some photographs of this same plant that I took last November and December. Not very good photographs, sorry, I just take them for my records, and it is difficult locating them by date when I try to upload them. I noticed that mostly the buds are red, but on other plants bought together with this one there are white-looking buds on red-flowering plants, so maybe my Cyclamen hasn't changed colour. Time will tell.

(Also, I have noticed that my photographs never do justice to the truly beautiful colours of flowers, the colours never look the same in photographs as they really are).

 

@groundbeetle, if you can force your camera to underexpose you might find an improvement. The trouble is that auto exposure will average out over the entire scene, and as the foliage is usually darker the colours in the flowers will get burnt out and detail will be lost as well. My camera has a very handy little dial right on the top plate to adjust exposure, and it's my favourite feature of that camera.

Example of my overexposed coreopsis below. Note how the highlights have turned pure white.

So then I put on some fairly severe underexposure - no white anywhere in the picture now!


The camera might also be trying to correct for white balance. I've found that I can't accurately take pictures of sunlight filtering through leaves - the highlights go white instead of golden, even when underexposed. I'm pretty sure that's a white balance thing but haven't worked out the fix on my camera yet! Could be fixed in the final image but I always like to do everything in camera.

 

@Escarpment, thanks but I don't think I will ever understand terms like "white balance". Weirdly, my phone camera takes better flower colours than my camera. I just took this picture of these same Cyclamen, after dark, and the colours are a bit better. Also a photograph of some Nasturtiums taken with my camera after dark.