An Iowa Garden

A couple of nights of very cold temperatures near zero, have winnowed the garden, leaving precious little to look at, unless you are one of those cheerful souls who will take pictures of ice crystal patterns on leaves to post on your garden blog. However, Cyclamen coum (ko-um) continues doing its thing, unperturbed by the cold. Native to the area of the Black Sea southwards, it is amazingly hardy and uncomplaining. The foliage arises in October, persists fairly unfazed through the winter, and for us the plant starts blooming in February, often through the snow. In milder climates, which at times like this I think must encompass most of the known world, coum starts blooming in December or January, and blooms intermittently through the whole winter. The leaves then disappear, and the plant goes dormant in late spring, until the cool days of fall coax it to start the whole cycle again. I was reading one of those slightly fussy British garden books, written by one of the legends of horticulture; these books, at their best are rather like rummaging about in an old, crowded closet... a jumble reflecting a lifetime in the garden, and one never knows what little nugget of information will pop up on the next page. Well, my hair almost stood on end when the author of this book praised the foliage of Cyclamen coum, but dismissed its flowers as being "dowdy". I suppose if I had an ancient walled garden in Britain, filled to overflowing with rare bulbs from all over the world that bloomed right through the winter, I could afford to get a little sniffy, too. Here in the middle of the plains, the flowers of cyclamen coum, cheerfully pushing up through the snow when the rest of the garden is still asleep, thrill me to pieces.