The beds right next to my front door get practically no direct sunlight. I've had a hard time finding anything to put in there. Yesterday I was flipping through a magazine and saw a picture of Rex Begonias and thought maybe some of those and some coleus, mixed with some ferns... I popped back in here to find someone who sold begonias and found a co-op going on for Angelwing Begonias and coleus both.. Good timing! :-)
So do fancy begonias like Houston? And will they do ok in full shade? And if not, does anyone else have any ideas? I'm tired of these boring beds...
Angelwing Begonias in Houston?
This is my front door in the afternoon. That's pretty much as much sun as that little bed ever gets.
Dunno for sure, Marylyn, but my cousins in Houston have big hanging baskets of angel-wings that they leave outside year-round. So far, they've always come back. But, that said, they are in a fairly protected area.
Begonias are so easy to take cuttings from... you could just enjoy them over the summer and take cuttings in the fall. I'm ordering from the coop too, and begonias definitely aren't winter-hardy here. The ones I have root in water and live happily there for the winter.
In answer to your other question, yes, they like shade and make good houseplants. But we also have a full-shade thread going, where you might get some other ideas to go with them.
Yep, I've been watching the shade thread with lots of interest. :-) Hostas don't seem to like Houston, though (too humid), and I'm not doing tropical in the front, so gingers and elephant ears won't work there. I do like oxalis, though, and I want to try Persian Shield, too.
I wasn't successful on the Persian Shield and not sure why. I wondered if it melted in the heat & humidity but others say no way. I managed to kill off two lovely plants.
On the other hand, I would say yes to the Angelwing Begonias. I have a walkway that is high shade. I keep large pots of these there and they look so cool and inviting. In pots they require a bit of water but I love them and will never be without. Yes, they root quite easily from cuttings too. I cut mine back to bring in over winter. I rooted in water and the cuttings continued to bloom. I started by pinching the blooms and finally just gave up and let them bloom their little hearts out.
I can't access my photos right now but this is a link to my journal photo. http://davesgarden.com/community/journals/si/108592/
I just wish the green leaved begonia had white blooms ~ how cool that would look! I am not sure how well the Rex will do in the sultry southern summers though. Good luck.
I have tried and tried to NOT kill begonias. In pots. They inevitably get a disease going, the leaves turn black one by one (sometimes two by two) and I end up tossing them. I now have a pot in my house that is thriving. I dunno about this area...
I tried a new plant (to me) last year, and it came through the winter in fine shape and is blooming now. It is Porphyrocoma pohliana (Brazilian Fireworks)
http://www.gardenerhelp.org/index.php/content/view/3482/33/
It is a tropical, but in our climate it obviously can be grown outdoors. I have it in shade, and it is about 10" tall and has filled in quite nicely.
But it IS tropical. And for some reason you don't want any tropical plants?
My Oxalis always gets rust. Always.
Are you against coleus? I think that could be stunning, unless you're looking for something perennial.
How about a spring blooming shrub? Virginia Sweetspire (Itea virginica) comes to mind for that location. The native can get to 10', but there are beautiful cultivars that stay 3 to 4 feet.
I agree about the coleus (and talk about easy to root!). I had a pot of yellow & green coleus last year in a great big pot with coral impatiens. It was one of the prettiest combos I've ever had, and it lasted from March till November.
I also think begonia cuttings blooming is funny. I had a double wax that I've been overwintering for 4 or 5 years. This year I wanted to share, so I stuck a few pieces in water, a few in pots... They're all blooming. The ones in pots never figured out they didn't have any roots yet. LOL!
I love coleus, although for some reason I've never tried it in that particular spot. I've had it in other places in the yard, and it's done great. :-) The coop has coleus and begonias.. I'm definitely going to get the coleus, I just wasn't sure about the begonias.
When we first moved here, the garden (which is the whole front yard), was a weird hodge-podge of desert, tropical, native, and miscellaneous plants, planted willy nilly with no thought given to how big anything was going to get. The trees (which we mostly kept and have used as our foundation plants) are desert/native, so we pulled the tropical out (elephant ears, HUGE philodendrons, etc...) along with two trees, 8 bushes, etc etc... So now we have sort of a native woodlands thing going, sort of. I suppose a few gingers wouldn't hurt anything now, but I still have a knee-jerk AAAAAARGH reaction to tropicals from dealing with the mess. I probably need to get over that. LOL
The Porphyrocoma pohliana looks gorgeous, CJ. :-)
Marylyn...Just FYI...That Co-Op is about to end and there aren't many things left. I have been contemplating this morning whether or not to pick up a couple of things...I was thinking about Angelwing Begonias also, so your thread is a good info for me. Thanks...
BTW, some Hostas do well here. I purchased Guacamole (that spelling doesn't look right). I purchased it last year through a co-op with Foxfire. It was really nice and spread well last year and is already starting to come back up this year. You just have to be very selective about which varieties you choose. Definitely not just the ones that they have at the garden centers around here. The only downside that I see is that it dies back in the winter and leaves a hole until Spring, so if you can cover that with something, I think you would be happy with that one. I know there were several others also listed that did well here. Yucca-Do has one called Praying Hands that I have been looking at, but haven't ordered yet.
Hope this helps.
Thanks, Sheila! I'll look into the Guacamole. :-) She's doing a second co-op with more begonias and coleus. They won't ship until April, though... That's pushing late for us. On the other hand, it will give me time to work on the rest of the garden. :-) http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/817418/
I just received a handful of Anglewing cuttings from a lady in Conroe who is a little farther north than me (I'm just on the topside of The Woodlands). She had tons of them! She lives in an older established neighborhood so her yard is predominately shady, but they seem to thrive under her care and said they have for years. I can only hope mine do as well. I have them in pots now as I try to finish my backyard planting areas as that is where all my shade is. Unfortunately that is also where my dogs are, so I'm still trying to figure a way to reclaim parts of it for a woodland garden...it's still under negotiation LOL.
That's very encouraging! Thanks, jojoringer. :-)