Tropicals & Tender Perennials: Displaying begonias, 1 by hcmcdole

hcmcdole wrote:
Lucilu,

I just place the pots on the ground. It's bad enough when we get a storm and I have to upright some of the plants (usually canes in plastic pots) but I cannot imagine the damage done to them if they were sitting on shelves. Also the chrome shelves are 6 foot high by 4 foot wide and 18 inches deep. I have 8 of these. Then I have 5 wooden shelves that are 6 foot high by 8 foot long and 2 foot deep. These are very big and heavy plus all the lights hanging off of them as well would be a pain to remove in summer and hang back in winter. The wood shelves would probably rot once moved outdoors which I hope they can stand for many, many years to come sitting in the basement.

Eventually it would be nice to have a wood platform (deck) for just displaying begonias around the yard. I really wanted to gravel a good portion of the back yard (Mediterranean style) so I could place a pot anywhere without fear of falling over due to slope and preventing mud splash back. The landscaper we hired had different ideas so we are stuck with a stone patio and doesn't come anywhere close to the size I was envisioning.

My other project that I want to try this year is planting a lot of the begonias in beds to see if I can increase the size and number of plants in a short span of time. I did this once at our old house and the canes I had at the time grew like proverbial weeds. The downside is digging them in fall.

What I really like is how sometimes after I moved them outdoors haphazardly (since I had help this past year and my little worker could've cared less about placement, they were even more haphazard than if I had done it all by myself) that some really turned out to be good combinations such as having good contrast like a silver leaf rex against a dark leaf rhizo. Then for the rest of the summer until the big splash in fall (when rexes become center stage), I move them about to please my eye. I don't worry about imperfections such as the lay of the land since this is a work in progress, but rather what might look good for picture taking and just the right amount of sun, etc. for health of the plant.

Here is a group shot of almost all of the rexes late September. I also find grouping them helps in watering them with a sprinkler instead of hand watering with a wand.

This message was edited Apr 12, 2007 12:12 PM