Hardy cyclamen

[Rachel]

Have been trying to get a patch going at woods' edge in zone 6 for a while, without success.

First try: ordered plants in spring, got plants with leaves, planted a couple of months before they went dormant. The leaves fell off, and nothing ever happened except that around September the squirrels dug up the corms and chewed on them.

Second try: ordered corms in August, but they didn't arrive till mid-October. Looked like they were ready to get going, but was it too late? Planted them, nothing happened in the fall. This morning I noticed one of them sitting on top of the soil with some gnawing marks - evidently dug up and tasted, then abandoned.

Any clues on getting these things to grow, before they get dug up and destroyed? Conditions were pretty normal: not too much water, but not too dry, either.

[Doug Kanter]

An exact Latin name would help, although I can't tell you the names of the ones I've had success with. In zone 5, mine flowered in September, made leaves in spring, and those leaves vanished by June. Lay chicken wire under a layer of mulch to dissuade the squirrels.

[Rachel]

C. hederifolium. Sorry.

Oh, I just remembered that I was going to do that last fall, but petered out when I couldn't find chicken wire (!) ... The places I looked cater to full-scale farmers and didn't want to sell me less than a huge roll of it, or else a sheet of some stuff with so tight a grid, that nothing would have grown through it.

[Doug Kanter]

No Lowe's or Home Depot around? They sell smaller rolls.

[Rachel]

Yep, there are - 25 miles away. I stay away from them usually and frequent Southern States and small nurseries that are closer by, but thanks for the tip.