Witness a miracle — with the right care

The pot-grown cyclamen needs all your love to survive, advises Charlie Wilkins.

A winter garden has a stilled, silent beauty, unlike anything found in the height of summer. The effect is magnified by the arrival of the first hard frosts and a further lowering of the available light. Its arrival here in the far south may be a month and more off yet but it has already hit many parts of the country.

It sees off sappy, tender plants such as Nasturtiums (the very first to go) leaving little more than a ghostly patch of yellow spaghetti-like mush and scattered seed on the cooling ground. Dahlias come a close second, followed by hostas, and then semi-tender agapanthus.