Begonias are moderate to heavy feeders. When in bloom, both your potted and bedded begonias should receive regular fertilizer feedings. We find a liquid slow-release fertilizer works best. Avoid fertilizers high in nitrogen. They result in lanky, fast-growing plants with few blossoms. The ideal environment for growing begonias combines slightly acidic soil, with a soil pH between 5. The experts have determined that getting the right pH and light seem to be the biggest contributing factors to color variations.
Looking to grow the perfect begonia? You can test the pH of your soil with an inexpensive soil test kit, and then adjust the pH as needed. Add garden lime or wood ashes to raise the pH. Add aluminum sulfate or elemental sulfur to lower it though this is usually only necessary in soils with very high clay content.
It might be best to grow your begonias in pots with a high quality potting soil, in this situation. Begonias need only a bit of tending to be stunningly gorgeous. Remove the faded blossoms, leaves and stems, trimming off the extra long stems in order to retain the attractive, compact shape. This little bit of care will result in better branching, more lush foliage and more blossoms. We also suggest, when moving your plants in or out of doors, giving them time to acclimate to help them survive the transition better.
How to acclimate them? When you bring them inside, put them first in a sunny window. I have been keeping them damp. I tried both coffee and vinger in water to try and make them grow. I don't; do well with tuberous begonias but that doesn't stop me from growing a few most years. Last year I stuck a basket of tuberous in the garage and let them dry out completely. I moved them outside a month or so ago and started with just a little water. Once I saw a bud, I knew there was still life in the pot and I started watering a little more and added slow release fertilizer to the surface.
Since that time, I have 3 half way decent plants that have come on very strong. Hope springs eternal. Coffee has acid and nitrogen, vinegar has just acid. If the soil is too alkaline. I used a mix, but it was not an acid loving plants mix. I was trying to kick start them. I had 11 and only two presented with this not sprouting issue, so I did fairly well, but I wanted to save these two if I can. I am surprised that the experts don't recommend a more alkaline mix as a lot of begonias are found around the opening of limestone caves.
I put the pots in plastic bags, then I left them in a warm place and I got sprouts within three days, now I am trying to make the sprouts become leaves. The process is slow. Where are the limestone cave begonias? I have tried posting twice now just to have it disappear so I composed a reply in wordpad and hope a simple paste works.
Limestone caves are found everywhere. Begonias can be found around the mouths of caves. I have listened to plant explorer Rekha Morris talk about her adventures in Mexico and India and a cave opening is a good place for her to start. Perhaps it is due to the coolness of a cave and a constant source of moisture and humidity?
Here are some examples of our adventures in Belize and Guatemala when we explored some Mayan ruins and caves. Tikal ruins in Guatemala. Very poor nutrients as the road we saw earlier limestone gravel for at least a mile was lined on both sides of the road with one species of begonia. Here is one of the tour guides sampling a bloom of this begonia in a field on our way to another "private" cave.
Well everything except pictures. I will post this to see if it goes and add pictures when houzz gets their act together. I found that this website likes photos that are very small. Some people have posted large photos here, but when I try I get an error. So, I used photoshop to reduce my photos to by , and then I set the image to be a medium or low quality. I was able to post several photos of my Sparten blueberry bush in just one post.
In photoshop go to go to file and then process mulitple files. Or you can just reduce them one at a time, but its very time consuming. Most sites like twitter and facebook now, reduce the photo for you, but gardenweb is kind of primative about photos. Or you can host them on another site and provide a link to them. Lots of people used photobucket, but they went out of business.
I used to use photobucket, and when people did that, you see a big X where the photo used to be, so I think its better to just reduce them and post them here on this site. If you use another program like gimp, which a free program, there is another way, you can look up.
Sometimes the command is called batch processing. I just put all the photos I want to post in a folder and make them smaller, then when ever I want to post, I have like a cache of small photos so I don't have to waste time working on making them smaller. I looked up Herman's Cave in Belize. It looks great, but those may be not non stop tuberous begonia. I once made a pot out of something called hypertuffa which I found here on the garden web. Its concreate powder and you mix it up, but the plants in all died beause of the leeching of the alkalinity from the concreate.
I know Florida is mostly made of limestone. That is why they have sink holes, and ferns and begonia grow very well there. I don't know maybe there is some trick to it, such as the rain water balances out the limestone? Thanks Laurel for all the info. I do resize all my photos and if you glance through the begonia forum alone you will see I have posted hundreds of photos over the years.
At one time in GW's past, only the original poster could post a photo and I think it was only one. The only way to get around that was to use HTML to embed a photo you had put in a photo sharing site such as Picasa another defunct site?
That was a good work around but the powers to be could delete those photos and let broken links on GW. Hence it is a lot better to reduce your photos first to eliminate slow uploading.
Non-stop tuberous are hybrids - not a species. Tuberous are found around the world and are the parents to a lot of the hybrids we buy today.
Do an image search for species tuberous in South America or Socotra Yemen and see how tuberous plants cling to life during the dry seasons on rocky outcrops. A lot of the new begonias coming out of China and Asia are tuberous in nature so there is no telling what new hybrids will look 10, 20 years from now. I made some hypertufa too but not experienced any plant death due to leaching of alkaline elements. In fact one of my first containers is fairly broken down now and the plants in them a juniper and a barberry live on with the broken container around them.
Typically we use granular or powdered lime to "sweeten" our acid red clay here. Anyway a good mix of limestone and acid soil isn't a bad thing.
Ah, yes Florida has some neat sunken gardens. I won't even attempt to add a photo to this post as I don't want to lose all I just typed in. Sunken garden sign at Fairchild the last time I visited in Would love to go see it again. Glad to see GW has fixed their photo glitch. Maybe they had a server that hosts the photos was down? Here is my tuberous from Sam's last year that I didn't water a drop this winter. This was May 23rd and the pot is drenched with rain. The begonias that would not sprout where put in tiny pots so I could watch them.
They did not sprout, so I placed the whole pots into a gallon size ziplock bag and zipped them up and placed them in the dark. In three days tiny white sprouts, so I put them indoors near window with no direct sun. The begonia look like they are on the way, but still the growth rate is very slow.
Oh my god, I am know I am doing something wrong with these. The other 9 and well underway with leaves, but these two are still barely out of the starting gates. I know there was an issue in which squirrels dug them up thinking they were nuts. Then the cats were playing with them, and I buried them back, but I think that stunned thier growth. It is not the fault of Ca begonias, as all of them were in perfect condition when they were mailed to me.
No, I had them in large flower pots, because I had read online that they did not like heat above But, if I had put them in beds, sure the cats like to dig up planting for a litter box. I sometimes place stakes or poles in the ground which discourages them. I think that is why they are more like annuals here due to our high temps but I still buy a few every year and don't worry about tossing them.
With more than 1, known species, the Begoniaceae family is one of the largest flowering plant groups. Tuberous begonias, which are grown from potato-like tubers, make popular bedding plants or first-choice options for the flower bed due to the fast growth of their showy blooms that last from early summer to late fall. They range in height from a few inches to over a foot, and they produce single or double blooms—some reaching up to 6 inches in diameter, depending on the species.
Known better for striking foliage than blooms although some species are flowering , rhizomatous begonias are characterized by roots resembling knobby, horizontal stems that creep along the surface of the soil.
The leaves on this type of begonia can be quite colorful, ranging from nearly white and soft yellow to deep purple, green, and red, often in exotic combinations and patterns.
The roots of a fibrous begonia look like typical plant roots that extend downward into the soil. These attractive flowering plants also come in a wide variety of colors for use as bedding plants or container plants. With so many cultivars to choose from, it can be tough to narrow the best begonia list. Knowing the following popular begonias might help.
With the exception of one or two species, begonias are tropical or subtropical plants and can be grown as perennials dying back in fall and regrowing in spring in zones 9 and 10 of the USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map. In most of the U. They prefer daily temperatures around 75 degrees Fahrenheit and overnight lows in the mids, but they can often tolerate higher temperatures with protection from harsh sun rays. Begonias can be transplanted to the flower garden in late spring as soon as the danger of frost has passed.
They will thrive—even bloom, depending on the variety—from then until fall when overnight lows dip below freezing. Favorite begonia conditions vary by cultivar, as do their bloom and leaf traits. Still, most have similar cultural requirements, including light, soil, water, and fertilizing.
Here are a few tips on care of begonias. The best location for this compromise is on the north or east side of your home, beneath a large tree or covered patio to filter the sunlight.
In more densely shaded spots , flowering tuberous and fibrous begonias tend to develop more leaves than blooms, though rhizomatous begonias which are grown for their foliage will flourish. Ideal begonia care requires well-drained soil that has been amended by the addition of organic matter, such as compost and peat moss.
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