For this month’s Plant Focus blog Dee, Highdown’s Volunteer Visitor Assistant, writes about the Highdown’s Cyclamen collection.
As a volunteer I am lucky enough to see the Gardens through every season, and even though the summer blooms have faded there is still much to see and admire in the garden. In my recent session, I was taken by the beautiful and delicate cyclamen that are now sprouting up, they seem almost otherworldly.
One rare species at Highdown is Cyclamen repandum, which came from a rugby-playing botanist Hiatt Cowles Baker, who found it in Corsica in the 1920s. They favour the edges of the woodland and can be seen in the lower rose garden and the middle garden. The Cyclamen repandum won’t be flowering until next Spring, however there are lots of varieties to see in the garden now including:
- Cyclamen hederifolium
- Cyclamen graecum
- Cyclamen purpurascens
- Cyclamen cilicium
- Cyclamen coum
If you have the opportunity, do come and see the cyclamen for yourselves. The staff and volunteers will give you a warm welcome, and you can take the time to enjoy the beauty and serenity of the garden, now putting on its autumn cloak and preparing for winter.
Photo of Cyclamen repandum (credit: Alex New)
Photos of Cyclamen hederifolium and close up of the flowers (credit: Alex New)
