Is this a record?

I have a pot of the small outdoor cyclamens, bought at Homebase during last winter. It has flowered continuously ever since. The others planted in the garden are long gone.

Years ago I had an indoor one which I kept going for years despite them supposedly being difficult, it thrived on neglect! Perhaps that is the secret.

I don't have a lot of luck with cyclamens - whether indoor or outside varieties. But I do think it's probably not a good idea to throw things out when they seem to have given up the ghost, which is what I tend to do. I had an orchid that a friend gave me last year and it flowered until Christmas and then I was left with a bare stalk. I was going to throw it in the bin and something stopped me. I stuck it in the utility room and forgot about it. It is now flowering it's head off!

It's the sheltered spot (and the cheery words) that have kept it going.

Oh, Lord! I didn't realise you had to use cheery words as well! Mine don't stand a chance then!

Surely you talk to your plants Greyduster?

Well, when I do, it goes something along these lines, with me pacing up and down saying "Right then, you 'orrible lot, get fell in and pay attention! We are not 'avin any more of this fallin' abaht an' dropping petals all over the place! From now on, I want stems straight, no disorderly conduct or droopin' leaves, an' them who do not come up to the mark will be doing jankers in the compost bin!" Is that cheery enough, do you think?

Well Greyduster your words made me laugh and certainly 'cheered me up' - Ta!

A nursery man once told me to give my plants 'benign neglect' which suits me fine and everything seems to survive somehow.
I was given an orchid by visitors over Christmas and it is still flowering well and looking good. It is not a patch on my friend's which has had the same flowers on for nearly two years now. Her neglect is not as benign as mine and her approach sounds very like Greyduster's

I love the way you talk to your plants Greyduster and have visions of them all standing trembling in the wind! With regard to the neglect, I think it works. I have two pots with peace lilies that grow in spite of being totally left unattended for weeks, sometimes months on end, I really do not deserve them, and when I took the trouble to re-pot an orchid which had been happily flowering for about 3 years (I thought it had out-grown it's pot) it instantly died, even though I did apologise for disturbing it, and said I hoped it would enjoy it's new pot.

Benign neglect? That's where I have been going wrong then! Anything with flowers takes one look at me, hates what it sees and promptly dies.

About 9 years ago I went to a talk on plants and we were told about buying cyclamens and how to care for them. As soon as leaves or flowers begin to die off you are supposed to pull them out gently (never cut). I bought a cyclamen that evening and it has lived on the kitchen window sill ever since, it's been repotted twice and flowers twice a year. 2 years ago I found another cyclamen growing out of pebbles behind the greenhouse, I dug it out and potted it and it now keeps the other one company on the window sill! That flowers twice a year too. I do talk to them sometimes and feel quite fond of them! DH thinks I'm crazy!

I bought three outdoor cyclamen -red, white and pink - last winter. They stood on the outside windowsill for months until they withered and are now having a rest in a quiet spot. My mum had a magnificent white cyclamen which flowered year after year. She had much greener fingers than I have.

I have a cerise coloured cyclamen that my friend bought me over 20 years ago and it's still going strong! It lives in a pot in my front room. Most plants I have end up dying because I forget to water them, so the cyclamen must thrive on neglect and abuse :-D

I also have a Christmas cactus that I bought for my Mum over 40 years ago and that is still magnificent when it flowers every year.

So those, along with spider plants, all do well with me. Every other plant dies lol.

There are lovely small cyclamens growing "wild"outside in a big patch of grass at a NT property near us. They have increased hugely in a few years, and seem very hardy. Maybe some of the pot variety have the same qualities.

When I was eleven, in 1963, my gran came to live with us and brought a Christmas cactus in a victorian jardinaire. Believe it or not, I still have the original plant and jardinaire in my porch. I have never repotted it as the pot is an old size and a bigger one wouldn't fit. I feed it now and again and it still flowers beautifully every Christmas. Is that a record?

To be honest, despite my earlier, flippant, post, I have been known to offer an encouraging word to my plants, and to stroke the underside of their leaves as a professional gardener once told me it stimulates them (I've still not worked out whether that one was a cheeky leg pull or not )!

Well, this has turned into a nice cheery thread, hasn't it? We all obviously love and appreciate our plants.

me too - I'm not bad at keeping plants. DH brought an antique sad looking plant from his office 28 years ago, it is still going strong. The children each have a baby from it - devil's ivy/scandapsis. It's fine still.

Flowering plants are more of a problem for me.

My daughter calls me 'Atilla the Mum' of the plant world. Perhaps I should speak nicely to them. A neighbour has asked me to take care of her orchid whilst she's on holiday -for two weeks for goodness sake!

My Daughter brought home a horrible plant from the office where she worked , I sneered at it and threatened it with the bin . I was more scared of the Daughter than the plant so did throw it the odd bit of Baby Bio and she had to take it back as it took off like a rocket and outgrew my window sill . We both love plants and hate putting them in the compost !

Just stick it in a corner and ignore it, Ginny -'it worked for me!

I have a white cyclamen that my DD bought me for mother's day FOUR years ago! It flowered well for about a month then died back for a couple of months. I was going to get rid of it when it sprang into life again. And it has kept on like this since then. Flowers for a month or 2,then dies off for a month or so. Then flowers again. Amazing,considering it was only guaranteed for 1 month and me keeping forgetting to water it.

Forgot to say,I gently pull the dead flowers and foliage off when it dies back.