Took this photo yesterday. Lots more lvs and all different. She's waiting
on a bigger pot.
Dancing Girl Now
Looking good, Jackie. Almost of my canes are defoliated (except Cracklin Rosie, Irene Nuss, Sophie Cecile, and Guy Savard). Do you do anything to keep mildew-free?
Butch, I hand water so, knock on wood, no mildew. I keep my g house at 55-60, night
time, so they've not defoliated.
I still have 10-15 cups of rooted cuttings on the bar, lol. I knew I wouldn't get it done
when I should have.
Jackie
Jackie,
Everytime I think I have mildew under control, then it will pop up again. Basements are not ideal but it will have to do.
I don't know what to make of the cuttings on the bar (haven't you heard that you should just say no to drinking and planting?).
Hey, I wish someone had told me about the drinking and planting bit. lol
Butch, Try making up a mix of water and apple cider vinegar to spray on one test begonia.
The acid so strong, noting can live in it. I use apple cider vinegar, 2-3 tsp in 3 ounces
of water to kill a stomach virus. Works every time. Try 2 teaspoons in 6 ounces of
water and spray. Just guestimating on the ratio. Are you game to try this on one begonia?
Jackie
I'm not game at this time. It's too much even to mix up what I already have (Neem oil) but sometimes you just have to do it.
How's your cuttings doing?
Butch, I always lose a few, leave them in the water too long. Most of the time I can just pinch off the rotten part and put it back in the glass. I did that to a Ginny and she rooted but it's just
a tiny thing. First time I've been able to propagate her.
I potted her up yesterday also a baby Phantom and a few others.
I tried a Safer product made with sea weed as primary ingredient. Wasn't too impressed
with it, just repelled the mites, didn't kill them so they keep coming back
Your cuttings looking great.
Jackie
Ginny in the g house Dec 30
Ginny has become very easy for me to prop lately. I can snap off the top and throw it in an old aquarium and in a few days it has some roots. Now I just need a very large tank.
Show me your Phantom.
Safer sea weed - wouldn't that be some kind of fertilizer?
The previous picture was of some new plants from Rob's and Plants for Kids.
Here are some cuttings. I've been adding plastic tops on a lot of plants lately (humidity, humidity, humidity).
Butch, the Safer spray is an organic, no poison bug spray. See weed or sea kelp
is the main ingredient. I should have known better, Ive tried a sea weed product before
and it barely helped then. I left my Neem out on a sub freezing night. I'm guessing
it's ruined now.
The cuttings look great too, the lvs are picture perfect.
Phantom has the irradescent lvs. I can root him but hard to get him up to any size.
He's temperamental when small, very easy when large. My cutting is small w/one lf
but it is rooted.
I saw that Safer's insecticide today with seaweed extract. I wonder what the purpose of that is? The active ingredients is fatty acids (of soap?) but nothing about the seaweed. It was only in a spray bottle so that is why I don't have it. I usually buy concentrates and mix it in a 3 gallon sprayer.
It looks like 'Phantom' is similar to 'Irene Nuss' but a paler green. Cool.
Here is 'Cachuma' and 'Big Mac' has a little bit of leaf peeking in. I'm about to give up on taking pictures with a tripod and a small aperture - while this gives a lot more detail, the colors are not as good with plain old flash.
Thought I'd show more of 'Big Mac' and carolineifolia.
Nice begonia's Butch. I love the big, shiny leaves on Big Mac and the leaf colors of Cachuma
That's a huge rhizome on carolineifolia, largest I've ever seen.
I don't like the seaweed extract as an insecticide. Wish I had just bought the original
Safer.
Jackie
Jackie,
Those are some of my biggest begonias. C. King and Queen used to be the biggest but they took a beating from frost damage and staying in the garage two winters ago. Hopefully keeping them in a warmer place this winter and downsizing on the pot will encourage them to return to their former glory. Nelumbiifolia has some of the biggest leaves but the rhizomes aren't that big. Hmmm.
Here is a tall begonia at the Southeastern Flower Show. This is from Hills and Dales Estate (the Callaway home - I wonder if this is the same people that started Callaway Gardens?).
Butch, I'm sure your Carribean King and Queen have faired much better this winter
in your grow space. By April or May, you should be able to pot them back up a size.. Even my Cowardly Lion, is faring ok in my g house. I didn't have to downsize, it had outgrown the 5 inch pot
and dry as a bone when I placed it there for the winter. I only water it once every 2 weeks, lol.
Trying to not kill it as I really like it.
Love the lg Begonia, maybe Bleeding Heart? Could very well be from the Estate of the
founders of Callaway Gardens. Will google for that when I get a chance.
This is my dreaded Wally World day. I will be there for 3 hours cause I like to look or see 5
people that I know and have to visit. lol
Jackie
Butch, A google revealed that the Callaway estate was the home of textile magnate
Fuller E Callaway Sr. So apparantly no connection to Callaway Gardens
Thanks Jackie for the interesting information about the Callaway estate. I thought since they are in the same area that maybe they were related. Just the name is the same, hmmm.
That tall begonia had a tag of salicifolia but I doubt that is correct. It is fairly common and from what pictures I see on the net, it looks more like a cultivar of albo-picta or 'Di-Erna'.
I see you survived your outing to WW. Three hours? Does this include trip time? Dreaded?
'Cowardly Lion' seems to do better with drier soil but high humidity. One of my CL dropped all its leaves last fall so I gathered the best 3, put them each in a plastic container with a damp paper towel where they sat for weeks. One didn't look good at the start so it became compost. The other two finally started to put on a bit of root but by the time I decided to do something, one of them started to rot. I took the remaining one and stuck it in a cup of potting soil. Here it is a few days ago.
Butch, After my usual 3 hrs at Wal-Mart, I didn't get to spend a lot of time googling.
If the Callaway house is in the same area as the Callaway gardens, perhaps they were related.
It was interesting saying that the gardens were developed over a period from 1841-1903
by a Sarah Farrell, so their gardens at Hills-Dales Estates known as Ferrell Gardens. Ms. Ferrell
would have been very old by this time so I doubt the dates of her involvement are accurate.
My trip to Wal-Mart dreaded cause my feet are so bad, I'm in misery by the time I get home.
But can't sit down as I have all my animals waiting on their evening meal. My trip time just 10 minutes each way, but it takes me forever to buy all the pet food that I need for just a week, not to mention a
few groceries, paper, plastic etc. I assure you our pets eat better than dh and I. lol
Your CL baby looks good, beautiful new baby lvs. I broke off a stem with lg leaf, trimmed down the
leaf area, stuck stem and all in a cup of water, just to see what happens. Doubt if I will
have success my first try.
Jackie,
I don't know the whole history about Callaway Gardens and less about Hills and Dales (first time I ever saw them). I haven't been to Callaway in a few years so maybe I'll venture down there this year. It's just a 1.5 to 2 hour drive one way. Easy, right? Not like the time I took the family to Bellingrath Gardens and Dauphin Island (around Mobile, AL) in one day (it's about a 5 to 6 hour drive one way). My daughters will never let me live that one down.
How many pets do you have? Sounds like you need to stock up instead of weekly trips. Maybe you feeding them too good. We go to Pet Smart once every 6 weeks or so and get a large bag of dry food. Table scraps and some treats along the way.
Place your CL leaf in a cup of a mix of good potting soil and Perlite, moisten, and invert a plastic see through cup over it. That should help a lot. I hate throwing out good leaves but it's got to the point that I throw most of them out lately. I'll return to propagating this summer into fall.
This is the way I am having to grow a lot of mine right now - under makeshift humidity domes (taliensis under a sponge cake cover). It works but it's a pain.
Butch, lol re the trip to Mobile.
My pets are too well fed. I have 3 lg outside dogs and 3 small inside dogs. I have 3 cats
and a friend asking me to take hers when they move in april. A horse, parrot and 6
stray cats next door. I feed the wild birds too. We won't even talk about how many
plants I have. Just too much for an old lady.
If my CL doesn't root, I will try one in potting mix and perlite with a dome. Will be good
practice for me.
Jackie,
Sounds like you have a petting zoo. One dog and one cat here. My wife feeds the birds as well. Now if we could keep the squirrels away. It sure is hard to capture birds on a camera through a screened window.
Nothing wrong with this picture. I can see it's an Eastern Bluebird. A few yrs ago, they started
showing back up here in small numbers. This after Audubon said there weren't any in the
South. Now we have several families nesting in the wooden fence posts of the horse
fence. I no longer see the red headed field finches or the goldfinch which we had in
abundance at our previous home.
Butch, we have the red squirrels here but just a couple, they eat with the birds. As long
as they don't move into the attic we will get along just fine. lol
Jackie
We have a couple of bluebirds showing up at the feeder and still have red finches. The goldfinches come in by the hundreds (well maybe not that many) at my parents in TN when the dandelions are in full bloom. It's hard to tell where they are at with a field of yellow. Then they usually pick the sunflowers clean when they are about ripe.
We don't have red squirrels - just the gray ones. We have the squirrel proof feeder but it doesn't stop them from trying to get a few morsels. They'd do better by just getting the seed that is dropped by the birds instead of climbing the deck but I guess they are slow learners.
Maybe this year we will put a hummingbird feeder out. This is at my parents.
Butch, DH takes care of our hummer feeder. Late in the season he gets tired of having to clean it and change it every few days. The nectar will sour or go bad in the 95 degree plus heat. But he does it
cause he likes to watch them. We only have the red throat hummer here
I've seen pics of people who can get the hummers to land in their hands, amazing.
We pay special attn to the feeder in Oct, knowing they will be filling up for their long trip
back to wherever they came from. We leave it out till we know for sure they have left.
I must've taken a few hundred shots of this feeder in two days. What got me after I downloaded all the pictures were the insects that were in the pictures as well. Until I blew it up I did not notice them. The photo above has a fly coming in for a landing. There are some pictures with ants or wasps on the feeder as well.
They have the ruby throats as well. I think they fill the feeder daily, sometimes twice a day so it doesn't have much of a chance to sour. Their neighbor has a stand of mimosa trees that are a hive of activity. I never knew hummers could squawk so much until I went over to see these trees.
Butch, I guess this is a silly question, but are these recent pics? If so, must be a lot warmer
where your parents live. By next month late, we will start seeing them return here. I have seen
them as early as March 22 in my friend girls' g house, after all her flowers. We put ours out
about that time every yr in case some return early.
Ssometimes the wasps are so bad, they chase the hummers away. The ants are impossible,
dh tried greasing the cord but that never works.
Love your pics. I will try to take a few this yr.
Beg Looking Glass outside last summer. Almost lost it 2 yrs ago, just coming back.
Hoping to repot it soon as it looks horrible in the g house as do most of my begonia's.
Those hummer pictures were last summer (I hope wasps and flies aren't out yet).
Nice LG there. Mine is okay but it looked grand for the first year (when I had a greenhouse). Here it was years ago even though it didn't look too bad last summer.
Butch, that's gorgeous. I hope I can get mine that large, would help some if I would bother
to feed it occasionally. I have a big rope tub in the g house for watering. Think I will just add
some food to the water then it won't be extra work to feed.
Going to start warming up tomorrow, a few days of 50's then a 60 for good measure,.
Spring not far away and can't be soon enough for me.
Jackie
It's still cold here (low 20's for the low and low 40's for the high). Next week we'll probably be in the 70's and the week after in the teens. Just seems to be the way of the weather. Spring for us is at least another 8 weeks (middle of April is supposed to be the last frost date but we got close to freezing in early May two years ago). I waited to the end of May to do any seed planting last year which was a big mistake - it got hot and dry so a lot of seeds didn't come up. This year I plan on planting the middle of April - it should make a big difference. My parents in TN may get a hard frost in the middle of May but I understand that in MN they can get a frost any day in the summer (too cold for me). I'm ready to retire to someplace tropical.
This picture is at Herman's Cave in Belize one year ago today. It was probably mid 80's and 90% humidity that day. Our tour guide and my wife are ready to enter the mouth of the cave.
Butch, I agree the middle of April is best for planting. You may have a night or two that flirts with freezing, we do too. Doesn't seem to hurt the seedling even though they might sulk.
I want to plant single and dbl Clitoria ternatea in the yard. A friend planted out the one I gave her
and it was so much nicer than mine in pots, fewer bugs too
Belize is beautiful. I won't ever get to see any of these places so I love to see photo's.
Did you get to bring back any plants or seeds from Belize?
Jackie
Hey Butch & Jackie, I just had to join in on the Looking Glass thread. I have one I found at a nursery in Griffin about 2 years ago and although it's large it does look bad now that it has spent the winter in the house. Has anyone ever seen Looking Glass bloom? I've read that it may be a shy bloomer.
Jackie your Dancing Girl is very nice, does she bloom?
Susan
Susan, Butchcan answer the Looking Glass bloom question better than I can. I think I also read it may be a shy bloomer.
Dancing girl probably blooms. I can't remember when I had 2 large specimens
yrs ago if they ever bloomed. One reason, I don't worry about the blooming too much
as it's the lvs I enjoy the most.
Susan, all mine ugly too right now. As soon as I place them outside for the summer,
the warm rain makes them beautiful again. Yours will be too if you can summer
it outside
Jackie
This message was edited Feb 19, 2007 1:22 PM
Susan,
I don't recall mine ever blooming but that isn't to say it hasn't (I think it has but don't hold my feet to the fire). The leaves are what I buy most of them for as well. The blooms are icing on the cake. Tuberous begonias are where the blooms are for me. 'Dragon Wings' aren't bad either. Another one that someone asked about recently was 'Sophie Cecile' and whether it ever blooms. Isn't that strange that I don't recall it ever blooming but again the leaves are all I need. My 'Cracklin Rosie' has never bloomed but I did see a picture showing it will bloom.
'Sophie Cecile' blooms great.....
Show us....
Mine bloomed for the first time this last summer. It wasn't all that spectacular and I suspect it finally bloomed because I acclimated it to late afternoon sunshine. Should have taken a picture. It was the first time in 10 years of growing this one that I had blooms, at least that I can recall.
My Sophie may have bloomed in the past (when I grew it in the ground) but the leaves are great even without the blooms. Isn't Lana very similar to Sophie? My Lucerna hasn't bloomed in the last few years either so I started it over this fall. What I love are the ones that bloom while putting down roots. I don't know what this one is but it has large polka dot leaves and a orangish scarlet bloom. When I bought it down on one of the Keys nearly 5 years ago the leaves were such a dark green that it appeared like it was black. Must've been that FL sun. The closest I can come to ID'ing this is 'Mary Ann Flunker'. Here it is just a few minutes ago. I threw a couple of kalanchoes in the same pot - double duty.
I have started all over with begonias....when I worked in a greenhouse in Houston back in the late 80's I ordered all our coleus and begonias....these were the ones which did quite well in Houston....don't know how many they carry now....
The begonias we grew were: 'Albo picta','Amigo Pink','Richmondensis', 'Rosa Picta','Sophie Cecile', ' Avalanche','Catalina',Cherry Blossom', 'Charm','Cane Lucerne', 'Jean Pernet', 'DiAnna', 'Lois Burks', 'Orange Rubra', 'Orbifolia', and 'Orococo'......the only reason that I know these is I had to write a little booklet for customers to shop and I still have one. When I get my new begonias in April I will be sure to send you a pic of Sohpie Cecile with its large dark silver and maroon speckled leaves with light pink blooms.....honestly, they did bloom beautifully......
gail
We grew outs in great big hanging baskets....??????
I'd have to go through old photo albums to find out if mine ever bloomed. Since going digital 6 years ago, I haven't even looked at old photo albums. Here was Sophie and a somewhat naked Rosie last summer.
that is beautiful hcmddole.........I keep my camera ready all the time......