Late last year and early in this year I bought three flowering plants of Cyclamen persicum. These were small plants selected for their fragrance. The winter turned out to be so mild that I was able to leave these plants outside almost throughout the winter. And they just got better and better as time went on. They were still blooming in early summer, and by that time an abundance of swelling seed pods was evident. During the summer I ignored them and they died back. I was going to collect the seed and send it off to one of the exchanges, but life intervened and the plants ended up dropping most of their seed right around the pots.
Now the seed that the ants and other animals did not get is germinating around the pots - and some in the pots with the old plants. I might experiment with some of these seedlings to see if they do well in the cold frames.
If you like fragrant plants and only know the big versions of Cyclamen persicum (these big ones are malodorous to my senses), be sure to sniff around among these small ones when you see them in the shops. Some of them are potently and very agreeably fragrant. If you keep them cool, they have the potential to bloom heavily for four or five months.
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