Inverted Growing Season

Cyclamen hederifolia flowers emerging through Carex platyphylla foliage in September

Cyclamen hederifolia in full leaf in mid January, finding plenty of growing room, growing with the dormant Carex platyphylla seen in the previous image

Arum italicum fruiting in August with conspicuously dormant leaves.

 

Dentaria (Cardamine) diphylla still looking fresh in March after being around all winter and before going dormant in the summer

 

Sternbergia lutea blooming in the fall as its leaves emerge from dormancy

I grow at least four perennials that emerge in the late summer or fall, remain green all winter and then go dormant as summer approaches (Dentaria (Cardamine) diphylla, Arum italicum, Sternbergia lutea, and Cyclamen hederifolium). Weird. I suppose that makes sense in a Mediterranian climate where the winters are mild and moist and the summers are hot and dry, and that is exactly where three of these four are native.  But somehow they survive in climates with cold winters and relatively moist hot summers.  Dentaria diphylla, on the other hand, is native to the eastern U.S. So where did it acquire this inverted growing season behavior? I bring this up not for botanical reasons but rather horticultural. How do you take advantage of this habit to enhance your garden? I mean, what a gift to have plants that grow when others aren't. They need to be paired up with compatible companions, but there's the rub.

I pride myself in my efforts to orchestrate the sequence of emergence and decline of perennials in my garden and have several combinations that I shamelessly tout as exemplary. But, alas, this growth habit I am calling "inverted" is challenging. I think I found a nice combination for the Cyclamen. I combined it with Carex platyphylla (Silver Sedge). The sedge is low growing enough that when the otherwise dormant Cyclamen sends up its flowers in mid summer they poke through the sedge and make a nice display. As the Cyclamen leaves are emerging late in the growing season the sedge leaves make room for them as they go dormant. It is all very tidy, but I haven't been able to do anything comparable with Arum italicum or especially Dentaria diphylla. (For hardiness reasons I grow Sternbergia in a pot.)  Arum italicum produces stalks with bright red fruit in August when the leaves are gone. It makes an interesting affect on bare ground, so there is a reward for not finding a sort of mirror image growing companion, but I would be more satisfied if I could. I have been growing Dentaria diphylla for six or seven years and only recently realized why it was so unsatisfactory in the summer. I just have to apply myself to this challenge. That (and so much more) is what I love about gardening.

November

Hardy cyclamen (Cyclamen hederifolium) offers beautiful new leaves for me to admire as I do my November gardening.

Bright yellow clumps of naturalized asparagus (Asparagus officinalis) pop out of the November landscape, offering interesting subjects for 60 mph botanizing.


Where I live in Ohio, November is the month we realize fall is over and the bleakness of winter is upon us. There are, however, a few features of the landscape that belie that verdict. One of my previous blogs at about this time of year featured the flowers of our native witchhazel (Hamamelis virginiana), another the late fall color of yellow root (Xanthorhiza simplicissima). I have noticed that dogbane (Apocynum cannabinum) stands out in early November with its bright yellow fall color. Of course, callery pear (Pyrus calleryana) is well known for its late fall color, and as I drive around town in mid November I am reminded how overused that tree is. Asparagus naturalizes in fence rows and can be easily spotted in November because of its bright yellow fall color and fine texture. These plants pop out of the otherwise bare November landscape. It makes for some fun "reading" of the landscape and gratifying features in my garden to greet me as I try to get as much done in the garden as possible before winter really does close things down.

Exciting Seedlings

Recently discovered seedling of Cyclamen purpurascens

One of the above seedling's likely parents in August toward the end of its blooming cycle.

This is Cyclamen hederafolium that E.A. Bowles wrote about in the quote below. It has the weird habit of blooming in late summer and putting out leaves in the fall.

There is something particularly gratifying about a desirable plant really settling in and making itself at home in my garden, and what could be more domestic than raising a family. This gratification is especially noteworthy when a plant that is a bit of a challenge to grow not only persists in my garden but also puts out a few seedlings. I discovered the above pictured seedling of Cyclamen purpurascens recently about thirty feet from my little planting of the parent plants. A likely parent, also pictured above, has been in my garden for about seven years and it and its companions are growing at a glacial pace. (In light of global warming we may have to change that expression.) So, given the slow growth of the parents the appearance of a few seedlings here and there was even more satisfying than usual.

A quote that caught my imagination about hardy cyclamens was from E.A. Bowles in his book My Garden in Autumn and Winter. In speaking of what we now call Cyclamen hederifolium he says, "You get as good value year in and year out from Cyclamen neapolitanum as from any one plant I can recall, and I think it must be one of the most long-lived of all that are not trees. There is one immense old root here, that would not go into the crown of my hat, and my dear old mother used to tell me she brought it from Atkins' garden at Painswick soon after her marriage, and it is now many years since my parents celebrated their golden wedding. Sixty years is a long life for any one plant, for C. neapolitanum does not renew itself annually as most bulbous plants do, but just grows a little wider from season to season and the older and larger it grows the more vigorous it gets, and the greater number of flowers it produces."

What are the chances one of my children will carry-on the cultivation of my cylamen? Ummm.