cyclamen blooming problem

I am having problems with my cyclamen plant. At first, for about a month and a half, the plant bloomed great. Now, the flowers and buds wilt and fall over, and leaves just pour on out. Whats happening?

Can you post some pictures? I'm not sure what you mean by the "leaves just pour on out", but buds wilting & falling over could be a sign of overwatering, although there could be other reasons too.

Sure. I'll get a photo up as soon as I can. And what I mean by "leaves just pour on out" is that while the flowers and buds wilt, the leaves are healthy, and more and more leaves come from the center. It's like for every flower that dies, 100 leaves fill in for it.

Looks healthy to me--could be that it's just getting done blooming. Even plants that can bloom repeatedly will go through phases where they have a lot of blooms and phases where there are less/none. Since it's growing a lot of leaves, it's probably focusing on that right now rather than blooming but if other conditions are right (enough light, etc) then it should get back to blooming eventually.

This is a photo from about a week ago. When it was purchased, the plant had 10 healthy flowers almost all the time, now it only has 2 flowers, and like an uncountable number of leaves. I will be posting a current pic tomorrow.

What you are holding in your hand are not buds, but what is left after the flower petals fall off as the bloom dies. There are seeds inside of them. Maybe there are no more buds and it is justs forming leaves like they usually do when finishing blooming.

I was holding the seed pods up so you could see them. The problem is with the wilting flowers. The stems become limp, on both the flowers and buds. I remove them and burn them(just a precaution in case of disease), and as the buds grow, they open all pale and near white in color, then they wilt and fall off.

Here's a photo of the plant today.There are TONS of buds tucked under all of the foliage. There are currently 2 flowers, as shown in the photo. One of the flowers is already falling over, and when held, the stem sits limp in my hand. The other is fine, for now... I removed some of the leaves, as they were yellow.

If the leaves are yellowing too as well as buds wilting & falling over you might want to check on your watering, too much water could cause both of those problems.

I will monitor the watering. I dunk the bottom of the pot in water for about 2 minutes, the a drain, and do not water for as long as it takes to dry out a bit. The buds seem to unfold, then become limp, and if left on the plant, have shown to start to rot. The last time I watered was about 1 month ago, as the cyclamen plant is growing in moisture retentive soil. There is one surviving flower that has unusually small petals, and a tall stem.

I'd repot it into less moisture retentive soil--unless you're growing bog plants it'll be hard to water properly if the mix it's potted in doesn't drain well. Even if you let it dry out a bunch in between waterings, it will spend too long with way more water around the roots than it really wants before it dries out a bit. I'd also suggest reading the sticky thread at the top of this forum about good growing practices-Al gives some great advice in there about soil choices & watering.

It probably is a soil/water problem. The only other things I can think of is that, when you watered, you didn't water into the center of the corm. If water sits in there at all, it can be a big problem. Also, cyclamen want cool temps. They prefer 60's or even lower. I keep mine outside on a porch in Phoenix even down to the high 30's and they are very happy with that.

It could be the temperature. The soil surface is moist from the watering, so it can't be that. I heard that the big florist cyclamen are a bit frost tender. Is this true?

I wouldn't let it get where there is any frost. I keep mine on my porch so I control the temp and the watering. It definitely can take high 30's but freezing temps of 32º I would not chance.

Earlier this year(around early November) the days were cool, and the nights were around the mid to low 50's. With the unusual heat palmdale has been having, the days are in the 70's (I even saw it at 85 once!), with the nights at 40's down to the low 30's. I kept it in, close to a window with enough sunlight for the cyclamen, and the windo was cold, so the air around the plant stayed relatively cool (high 60's to the high 50's ) I thought this was fine, but I I was wrong(lol).

I'd put it out if you have a porch. Morning sun would be nice (they can take all day IF adapted to it but yours isn't). The nice cool nights help it to cope with warmer days and it, hopefully, will save the flowers you have coming.

We do have a porch but it is shaded. Would this still work? I saw hederoflorum cyclamen in a container, but that's not my type of cyclamen. I'm thinking of buying another, and possibly an amaryllis. My local lowes sells the small and large cyclamen, as well as potted and boxed amaryllis. Even now! There are some amaryllis bulbs in pots that have gone to seed. Free seeds, and a wonderful plant for next year, all for 3.99!

Can cyclamen develop a stick? Because i was pulling off dried stems and such, and I found leaves and buds growing from an inch long stick-like stem, at that in turn is attached to the corm. It is growing almost like a philodendron with the leaf scars and all. I will post a picture of it. The "trunk" like stem is in the middle, and currently is about 1. inch tall.

This message was edited Jan 15, 2012 11:15 AM

I will post a pic later of the buds I want to save.

This message was edited Jan 15, 2012 11:12 AM

The buds.

I'd put it on the porch and give it a try. What do you have to lose? The flowers are not doing well now and it may help them. It looks from your pictures that it has lots of nice buds that could grow up and open. It does not develop a stem too much, but your picture looks like very normal growth to me. If it is a shady porch, put in in as bright a spot as you can on it. That's the best you can do.

It may not be super big, but the stem looks like a miniature trunk.

Better photo.

I think the others have given the best advice by telling you to change the water retentive soil BUT, don't do this while the plant is flowering or still growing as most plants don't take kindly to being poked about while trying to grow.
These plants as you know are corms and the center of the corm has a little dent in it, the last thing it wants is this little indent to get water left in it as it will rot the corm, as will the corm sitting in constantly wet soil, I would say watering once per month is wrong, this plant requires water little and more often but the best way to tell if water is needed is simply stick your finger into soil and if wet/damp, don't water, if dry, water, I cant imagine the plant came to you in water retentive soil or if it did, then it was wrongly planted, these plants like slight shade, rich soil with added leaf mold when growing in the wild, too much draft, central heating, gas fumes and over watering are causes for all the problems you appear to be having so changing the growing conditioned has to be the first step to help the plant.
the hard stem you have found is just the plants way of finding more space to spread out as these make lots of leaves and buds. to keep the plant flowering it is always best to remove all the seed-heads and decaying leaves, the plants use a lot of energy to produce seeds and this is usually at the cost of making more flowers.
Hope all this helps you out as everyone else has also given you good advice to help the plant. Best of luck. Weenel.

I took it off. The temperature outside last night was 24 Degrees! It has never been so low in a while. Should I still move it outside? Or keep it in?