Northern Lights starting to bloom
Some begonias starting to grow now
Aerial roots on NY Swirl (lots of humidity in an aquarium)
aerial roots on Fiji Islands (compliments of Begoniacrazii)
NY Swirl is so pretty.
Kaleem
aerial roots on Pollux (another Begoniacrazii trade)
Gumlla,
Here is a better view of the leaves of 'NY Swirl'.
Absolutely so beautiful. I always read your threads and posts and fell in love with your plants. You really have a great collection.
Thanks for sharing.
Kaleem
Butch- your soil looks WELL aerated. What kind do you use?
Your plants are all very beautiful!
GH
Butch, now I like 'Grey Feather' even more! I think I'm coming to raid your gardens next time I travel south :) Either that, or I need to get busy and find something you don't have to do a trade - or maybe a perennial you're looking for?
GH,
I use a liberal amount of perlite with a good potting soil - about 50-50 (this past year I just buy the large bags of Miracle-Gro at Sam's Club). I got tired of buying the small bags of perlite as well so I finally got a very large bag of it at our local nursery chain. I think I saved some money going this route.
RCN,
I got 'Grey Feather' from GHW about 3 years ago. It grows very well if you don't keep it wet.
Here are a bunch of canes from this past summer except for carolineifolia and bunchii.
How about 'Sinbad' (center), 'Torch' (red blooms), 'Chocolate' (trailing), richmondensis (left), and 'Maribel' (backside) in an 18" pot? This was late July.
Butch, You've got a great Begonia collection. But apparant to us all, you're a very talented grower as well.
Thanx for sharing.
Jackie
Hi Jackie,
I've got a pretty good start on a collection but nothing like some of the people in fairer weather states.
I don't think it's talent, just persistence. I've killed a bunch through the years. Learning as I go. Trying different things as you go along. One example is pot size. I tried going with the flow on potting up to the next size as a lot of people advocate. Then I saw some astonishing things from my mother's plants that I gave her. Hers was a lot bigger than mine but then she just moved them up to a big pot to begin with. So I tried that with the canes above and it worked pretty good.
Butch
Butch,
What is the difference between 'Purple Curl' and 'NY Swirl' ?
From the pictures, I thought I had the first one. Then the other
picture appeared and now I don't know whch one I have.
Thanks for help in naming,
Louise
Butch,
You sure have a talent in growing Begonias. They are gorgeous.
Patti
Louise,
'Purple Curl' and 'NY Swirl' do look similar. I hope NY Swirl fills out like this though: (go down to New York Swirl and click on the picture - allow pop-ups for this site).
http://www.boomanfloral.com/lp_gac.htm
I bought NY Swirl from Logee's and it isn't even on their web site anymore.
Patti,
Thanks for the compliments. It's been a lot of fun growing them. Just wish the winters weren't so long.
Butch
Butch,
I checked the link and it has fantastic looking plants but I couldn't find a price anywhere. And the availability was quoted in cases - so I guess it is mostly wholesale. I think I have either NY Swirl or the Seattle something.
They're almost the same. I really like the Maui Mist.
They don't offer a catalog. I bookmarked their site for plant ID.
Louise
beautiful as always my friend!!
Are the Rob's begonias new? How big are the plants they send?
Are those roots due to the humidity? My Sinbad is a powdery mildew magnet! I just can't seem to shake it!
Butch, I also subscribed to the 1 pot size increase at a time theory.
Somewhere along the way, I think I just forgot that we do that because it's
the safe thing to do. Well no more!!! Even my poor vines suffer
as I move them up 1 size. They start growing and in no time the
roots hit the bottom of the pot. They sit there sulking, waiting on me to pot them up again. Will be doing things differently this summer.
Thanx for the tip.
Edited to add I will be sitting in the shade on my chaise lounger
drinking mint juleps.
Jackie
This message was edited Feb 26, 2006 2:43 PM
Louise,
A lot of web sites are like that. Either wholesale or just pictures. Always good for reference though. Just wish there was one location (ABS?) that had a fairly complete list along with stunning pictures but the ABS site is very lacking.
Laurie,
The Rob's begonias were bought back in September or October to replace the ones I killed earlier. Another lesson learned - DON'T use garden fertilizer on young small plants. Stick with slow release and/or water soluble. Rob's come in very small pots but very well packed (a bit too much tape though) - about rinse cup size but grow well if you treat them right. 'Chantilly Lace' is one I've had for a few years and has outgrown its present 4 inch pot.
One more lesson I'm slowly learning is don't economize on pots, i.e. using a community pot instead of individual pots. It's a lot cheaper in the long run to lose one plant instead of several in the same pot.
You're right about the aerial roots - it is due to the high humidity in the aquarium. The other thing I didn't mention is that most of those pots also have roots that have come out the drainage hole. Now that's what I like to see - Lots of roots!!!
'Sinbad' is notorious but so are a lot of canes as a powdery mildew magnet. Mine starts getting it in late August/early September and will last through May. It drops all its leaves and the top parts of the canes as well. I just try to keep it from rotting (read - cut the water down tremendously), spray from time to time with Lysol, and wait until spring. I'm sure if I had a huge light source over it then it would do a lot better.
Jackie,
As for the large pots, I think if we had an idea on how big some plants get and how fast they grow, then we could select an appropriate sized pot early in the game. We also should consider moving the pots back inside. They can be heavy and take up a lot of space.
I bought about a dozen large pots last year (18 inch) at Sam's for around $10 a pop and several ended up being used for begonias. 'Caribbean King' and 'C. Queen' quickly filled these pots from gallon size starts. Nelumbifolia filled it well, but the leaves did not get as big as I had expected. 'Plum Gorgeous' did well to begin with but then had a setback (fertilizer?). As for the pots with canes, I typically put 3 or 4 different ones in each pot and they all did very well, although 'Sinbad' dwarfed its pot mates.
Sam's has a different style this year but still very affordable. They also have 22" pots around $15.
You can also force a smaller size as well by limiting the size of the pot. Here is a picture of my 'Black Coffee' in 4 different size pots. The one in the middle clay pot is the parent. The bigger pots and the solo cup were all started by a leaf off the parent at the same time. The solo rinse cup has a bit of soil on the bottom to raise the plant up to the rim. The plant is in a Jiffy peat cube so I have no soil on the sides which keeps the roots "air-pruned".
Butch, the photo's of Black Coffee are simply amazing.
If I tried to pot rhiz into big pots, they would just croak
But yours are lovely and thriving.
I do intend to pot up all my large canes into even bigger pots.
I lucked out since I have a friend that owned a nursery. She gave me tons of the large, 5, 10 and 15 gallon black nursery pots in exchange for
the exotic plants I gave her. So that worked out well
Jackie.
Jackie,
I don't think if you potted your rhizo's in big pots, that they would croak. It depends on your potting mix, the pot itself, and how much water it received.
I've had torrential rains where a begonia looks like it's gasping for air afterwards. At that point, I popped the plant out of the pot and let it air dry for a day or however long it needed to perk up again. I then put it back in the pot and move on.
Sounds like you had a good trade on the pots. I like nursery pots for propagating so I'm always saving a few from 6" to 10 gallon. Then I go stock up on 4", 6", 8" and a couple of 10" clay pots - usually bonsai or azalea types when I'm running low on supplies. I also like the Norcal glazed pots at the big 3, especially the cobalt blue ones. Wal-Mart lists them as pickle pots. I even buy plastic bowls and large pots to economize at times.
Butch
Here is a picture of a begonia I gave my mother. She put it in the large pot and it really filled out nicely. Her begonia on the left was started by a leaf from the plant on the right. This is an example of pot size and how it influences the plant.
And here is an overhead of the same two begonias. Quite a difference?
WOW!! Let me make sure that I am understanding you correctly. You can go ahead and plant in a big pot instead of going up in sizes as plant grows ? That is great. All of your begonia's are beautiful by the way. I am envious!!
Kristi
Butch, The difference in size is unbelievable. One of these days, I will
build up the nerve to try the large pot method on my rhizomatous.
For now I will just try some or all of my canes.That will give me a break from the seemingly constant repotting.
Thanx for all the great pics.
Jackie