On 17-04-03 06:16 PM, Kathleen Sayce <kathleen.sayce@gmail.com <mailto:kathleen.sayce@gmail.com>> wrote: > I garden in sand (fine beach sand, acidic, and well drained) and have > cyclamen all over my yard (yay! ants). Never water the plants. I also > do not amend the soil. They are wet all winter due to rain, growing > in soil that drains quickly, and dry all summer. From Rodger Whitlock: Fresh water beach or salt water beach? It makes a difference because the latter will have endless shell fragments in it, providing an equally endless supply of calcium ? which is good for cyclamen. Salt water, and calcium levels are vanishingly small in local soils. I add Ca every year. High rainfall and moderately acidic soil means the calcium that is here is very mobile. We say of those water soluble nutrients that they wave at the plant roots as they wash by. Kathleen