Aging florist\'s cyclamens and African violets

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MollyBlooms Grosse Pointe Farms, MI Sep 13, 2016

I usually have pretty decent success with getting cyclamens to bloom from one year to the next, but I now have a couple that are at least 10 years old and have corms about teacup size, and they are doing very little. I follow James Crockett's instructions to the letter, but these two throw up a few leaves and only from one point on the corm. Should I cut out the "eye" that's leafing out and repot it, or is it just time for these two to go on the compost heap?
Also, I have some African violets that are getting pretty stalky, for about the third time. I've managed to rejuvenate these plants a couple of times by cutting back the root ball, scraping the stalk, and then planting in fresh potting soil with most of the stalk buried. But the last time I did this, the bloom wasn't quite as good as before. Should I just take some leaf cuttings and consign the plants to the composter?

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Pistil Lake Stevens, WA(Zone 8a) Sep 13, 2016

I'm no expert, but had the same thing with my African Violets, I finally trashed them when they must have been nearly 10 years old. It felt fine to give up, and I bought a bunch of oddities from Logee's Greenhouse to replace them. I never tried to keep a Florists Cyclamen, so can't really say. I have C. hederifolium in the garden, they get bigger and bloom more every year.

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MollyBlooms Grosse Pointe Farms, MI Sep 18, 2016

Pistil, those are beautiful! Wish I could keep hardy cyclamen going here in the garden. I had a few come back for a couple of years, then that was it. I think the resident squirrels must have eaten them.

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