I find it impossible to keep cyclamen as a houseplant. But to my delight in this garden we have a carpet of cyclamen under the trees and bushes; a wash of pinks from almost white to lilac. 

For some reason I found these pretty little flowers difficult to draw.  They look delicate, but have strong shapes to the petals.  In fact they remind me of the old-fashioned nun’s wimples – the ones with the ‘wings’. From a distance they could be a mass of tiny butterflies.

The cyclamen reminds me again of how some of our most delicate-looking flowers are actually the most hardy, flowering through the winter and coping with frost and snow.