Plants I'm growing: First blooms (2022)—Cyclamen Coum

I note here a little belatedly that Cyclamen coum was the first plant in the garden to bloom this year, as it is in most years. The first couple of flowers opened this year on January 7, which is typical. Cyclamen coum normally blooms in the first week of January, occasionally in the last week of December. Also blooming in the garden right now is the pink flowering plum at the front of the house. The first flowers opened on January 10 or so, although, strictly speaking, I missed their first day.  

Plants I'm Growing: First Blooms—Cyclamen Coum and White Flowering Plum (First Week of January 2019)

I've become lazy about keeping track of first blooms in the garden. I think this is because, having taken fairly careful notes, for several years, I've satisfied my original curiosity about the consistency of bloom dates. At first I recorded the first blossoming of virtually every plant in the garden. More recently I've limited by attention to a smaller sampling and missed a few dates I would have liked to have recorded more carefully.

As usual, Cyclamen coum, a dwarf cyclamen variety, was the first flower to bloom in the garden in the new year, several blossoms were already open on the 2nd or 3rd of January, but a single blossom had already opened on December 16--which is quite a bit earlier than every before. Probably an outlier, not part of a trend. Last year this plant bloomed first on January 4. So, aside from the one early bloom, this is in line with its usual pattern.

The white flowering plum on the side of the house began blooming almost a week ago, but I missed the exact date. Probably around January 4. Always pretty, always delightfully fragrant, the bees are already swarming it, probably mostly to collect the abundant pollen. We lost our bees this past summer, so these are bees from hives the neighbors keep. The plum first bloomed last year on January 14, so this is comparatively early, although not unusually so. The tree has had its first flowers as early as December 30 in the past.

Plants I'm Growing: First Blooms—Cyclamen Coum, White Flowering Plum

On the first day of 2018, the white Japanese flowering plum in the back yard started to bloom. It has bloomed as early as December 30, but it typically blooms in the middle of January (about now, today being January 14), so the flowers opened somewhat early this year.

On January 4, the first blooms appeared on the delicate dwarf cyclamen we have growing in back of the house under a Japanese maple--Cyclamen coum. The flower stalks stand only about two inches high. This tiny cyclamen typically blooms anywhere from late December to early January, so, that was in line with its usual pattern.

Plants I'm Growing: Outliers (December 25, 2012)

Recently I noticed a couple of plants in the garden blooming earlier than usual. First blooms on the dainty little cyclamen Cyclamen coum under the Japanese maple at the back of the house opened the day before yesterday (December 23). This is usually the first flower to bloom each year. Typically the earliest buds open in the first week of January. They bloomed on December 23 also in 2010 (which I counted as 2011), so this is not unprecedented, but on January 8 in 2009 and January 3 in 2010, so still earlier than usual (photo above).

The white flowering plum (Prunus mume) began blooming on December 21 or so, which is considerably earlier than usual. This plant bloomed on January 4, 2011, January 19, 2010, and January 20, 2009. Perhaps early because of all the rain this year?

  

Plants I'm Growing: First Blooms--Cyclamen Coum

As in past years, the tiny cyclamen Cyclamen coum has become the first flower to bloom in the garden in the new year--today, January 8. The plant bloomed on January 8 also in 2009. It bloomed on January 3 in 2010. In 2011, it bloomed early, on December 23, 2010--not actually into 2011. This year, it's back on schedule, so to speak. Cyclamen coum has thus calculated a long year of  381 days, following a short 352-day year last year and a 360-day year the year before. The average since I began checking has been 364.5 days, almost exactly a calendar year--supporting my supposition when I started this project that years calculated by plants from first bloom to first bloom are likely to average to a calendar year over time, even if there are aberrant years.

Plants I'm Growing--First Blooms: Cyclamen Coum (2011)

Although it's still 2010, I count this as the first blossom of 2011 in the yard because this plant usually blooms in the first week of January, and little else will be coming into bloom any time soon, except for candytuft. This tiny little cyclamen has done wonderfully. I planted two or three a few years ago and there is now a thick mat of leaves about two feet square. The plant appears to spread both by underground roots and by seed.

This flower opened on December 21, 2010. Cyclamen coum started to bloom on January 3, 2010 last winter and on January 8 in 2009. Thus, a year according to this plant was 352 days this season, 360 days in the preceding season.

Plants I'm Growing: Cyclamen Coum

I tardily note here that the first Cyclamen coum blossoms in the garden opened on January 1st. That's seven days earlier than last year. Like last year, it was the first plant to bloom here in the new year. See last year's note on this plant for details. Cyclamen coum.

Thus, the duration of a year--according to this plant--was 358 days (in this case, corresponding mostly to calendar year 2009). As 2010 progresses, I plan to calculate the passage of a year as reckoned by the space between the first blossoms of various plants in the garden this year and last. It will be interesting to see how long each of the botanical years turns out to be. Will they average 365 days? More likely, the year for each species will average to 365 days over many years with significant annual variations. We'll see.

Plants I'm Growing--First Blooms (2010): Cyclamen Coum

Cyclamen coum blossomed today. It gets the honor of being the first new flower of 2009--at least in this small corner of the world. I planted a drift of these under the coral bark maple behind the house two years ago. Those that survived have taken hold and begun to spread slowly. This is a beautiful little plant that seems unjustly neglected to me. It has variegated heart-shaped leaves and a tiny blossom that doesn't overpower the plant the way the oversized blossoms of ordinary cyclamen do. The blossom of coum is no bigger than a dime. It appears to be native to the Black Sea coast from Bulgaria to Georgia and south into Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, and Israel. That explains why it survives our summer dry period. In the first year, I thought I'd lost every one I planted, but new leaves appeared once the winter rains began. A very pretty and cheerful flower that is most welcome at this time of year. I'm guessing that Daphne (Daphne odorata--buds are visible in the second photo here) will be next to bloom, followed by our Japanese flowering plum--two of the most wonderfully fragrant plants in the garden. I wish you could smell them.

(My Cyclamen coum plants are from Cottage Gardens, which has stores in Petaluma and Bennett Valley. I haven't seen this plant elsewhere, but no doubt it's available on line.)