I concur, they struck me as expensive relative to other bulbs etc. Lidl are selling them potted for £1.79 at the moment, not sure of size or species though.
Agree with everything already said. If they are cheap then they are not Cyclamen hederifolia or Cyclamen coum. £1.79 is very very cheap. To get a good Cyclamen coum which is very hardy in UK you can expect to pay a lot of money...maybe £6.50 for one plant in flowers.
Pic below shows mass planting in our old garden.on 30th January.
Squirrels dug up (and ran away with) newly planted C. coum in my garden, I'm afraid. However, if I plant them in flower they leave them alone, and by the time they've died down they have anchored themselves and the squirrels ignore them. So with any new ones, I just get them to flowering in a pot in a cold frame, plant out and no squirrel issues. It's a bit expensive without these precautions!
'If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.'
I just love Cyclamen in a garden. I planted some C.coum in new garden and I think vine weevil ? hit them badly, killed corms. Luckily they had seeded in the bed so I have not lost them. Red squirrels thankfully leave them alone
I love them too. I am planting some bedding C out shortly and it will be interesting to see how they do with frost. I will keep a close eye.
A friend's bedders went straight through the winter in sheltered window boxes last year and flowered their socks off until spring (north London). I'm going to give it a go, along with hed. and coum elsewhere.
I can honestly say I've never had a problem with squirrels getting them. Maybe I've been lucky, although I mainly have hederifolium rather than coum, but I wouldn't have thought they'd be too fussy . I had some coum in a previous garden but I can't remember how well they grew.
It's a place where beautiful isn't enough of a word....
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
I've seen posts on the forum that say not to plant coum and hed. in the same patch. Is it really a problem?
Only in that the hederifolium will easily out-compete the coum and take over. Planting them in separate groups of the same type is the way to go if you want to grow both.
A trowel in the hand is worth a thousand lost under a bush.
I can honestly say I've never had a problem with squirrels getting them. Maybe I've been lucky, although I mainly have hederifolium rather than coum, but I wouldn't have thought they'd be too fussy . I had some coum in a previous garden but I can't remember how well they grew.
I have squirrel problems with almost everything in this garden. But there are a LOT of squirrels (in that I can't remember ever looking out of the window or being in the garden and there not being at least one, usually two or three, out there). I have C. hederifolium and C. coum, but the only ones I've ever tried planting out as bare tubers were C. coum... they didn't last long, and I've done the 'get them to flowering' method with both coum and hed since - so I wasn't saying it was only coum.
'If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.'
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Yes @cmarkr I think it's a con. All the GCs seem to do it.
Agree with everything already said.
If they are cheap then they are not Cyclamen hederifolia or Cyclamen coum.
£1.79 is very very cheap.
To get a good Cyclamen coum which is very hardy in UK you can expect to pay a lot of money...maybe £6.50 for one plant in flowers.
Pic below shows mass planting in our old garden.on 30th January.
I planted some C.coum in new garden and I think vine weevil ? hit them badly, killed corms.
Luckily they had seeded in the bed so I have not lost them.
Red squirrels thankfully leave them alone
I had some coum in a previous garden but I can't remember how well they grew.
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
Only in that the hederifolium will easily out-compete the coum and take over. Planting them in separate groups of the same type is the way to go if you want to grow both.