The cold weather and severe frosts gave way to very mild weather with scattered rain showers. This gave me a chance to get a walk round the garden to observe what damage the frost had done. At last I know the difference between Cyclamen Africana and Hederifolium that are planted in the garden. The dead ones were all Africnum. (Only joking) There is no damage that I can see at the moment but that does not say that something won't show up later in the season.
Just as I had predicted, seed is germinating like mustard and cress, mostly bulbs at the moment, but I am quite confident that the others will follow in the near future.
In the alpine house the Lewisia seed is germinating very well and the Brachycalyx seedlings are almost one inch high. The parent plants, some with four or five growing points are already showing flower buds. They should make a nice display when they are all in flower at the same time. Some of the hybrids (my own crosses) have remained evergreen and a few of them have produced the occasional flower all winter.
Primulas that are the most light sensitive plants that I have, are responding to the extra day length already with flowers popping up all over the place, Cyclamen coum and all its variants that had flowers tucked under the foliage close to the surface of the pot, have now decided it is time to venture fourth and see what the world has to offer.
This is a most interesting time comparing the foliage and flowers of each plant to see how they compare to a normal plant of this species.
The variants of this plant is another matter altogether as they hybridise very easily amongst themselves and there is always something new is each batch of seedlings, that is what makes most interesting. If they all came true from seed and you knew what exactly you were going to get every time there would be no excitement come flowering time at all.
When the weather is bad at this time of the year it is a pleasant enough task going through the seedlings and sorting them out, matching leaf colour and pattern with flower colour and sometimes scent.
Cyclamen coum has one of the widest variation in leaf and flower colour of any of the
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