Specialty Gardening: You have too many plants! 2, 1 by hcmcdole

hcmcdole wrote:
As a general rule you are right. That is a rule of safety. But rules are meant to be broken. If the plant you have has a tendency to grow large in a single growing season why bother going through stages when you can leapfrog 3 or more potting sizes. Sinbad is one that can fill a pot in a season. Of course at the end of the season you may want to lift it out of a big pot, trim it down to size, maybe root prune so it is better managed indoors due to limited space. My Bonfire this year was moved from a six inch pot to an 18 inch pot and the branches are hanging over the sides and touching the ground. In the past I obeyed the rule but never had this size in such a short amount of time. I could go on with other examples - my mother has put some of the begonias I gave her into much bigger pots and I was amazed at how much bigger and healthier they looked than my mother plants that I used to get her started. My best example is my first visit to Miami and PHOE (Palm Hammock Orchid Estates) I bought a few begonias. Two were Caribbean King and C. Queen. I got them in gallon sized pots and put them into 18 inch pots (didn't know about silly potting up rules). In one season they were monsters (pictures to follow). Now the reverse is true too. I left them out to early November and got a hard frost - all the leaves were damaged but the rhizomes looked good. I moved them into the garage with pretty cool air and dim light. The rhizomes lost some size but the next year they did pretty good but not like the first year. I repeated it the second winter and the rhizomes got even smaller. Finally the third year I potted down and kept them in a much warmer basement under lights. One more year to gain some more size and this summer they are about the size (in leaf) to my first year.

Lesson learned - pot up to a big pot if you want a bit plant. Do not use garden fertilizer on young plants. Do not over water young plants. Finally pot down if the plant is decreasing rather than increasing.

Here were my C. King and Queen back in '05 after one full growing season. These are 18 inch pots.

Well I was hoping to find both together but it looks like it will be one at a time.

The King wasn't as big as the Queen but still pretty good sized.