I use Schultz rooting hormone on my leaf cuttings. I use seedling trays and perlite as the growth medium.
As for repotting any begonia, I just Miracle growth potting mix. So far, so good for the past 2 yrs.
Sevin is a pretty toxic chemical I would avoid using in the house. Neem oil though it smells funny is far safer. I used to use it on my roses.
Blossom, what is GPS? I just know it's my navigational device.
No luck propagating
Rooting hormone is a personal thing - I haven't seen any advantage of it with begonias. I get the Neem concentrate from Lowes or a garden nursery. I think it is Schultz. I don't use it often. Sevin was used as a flea powder at one time but there are much safer and more effective controls now but you have to get a prescription from the vet. At some point bugs develop resistance to Sevin.
I have not found a more effective flea control than the carboryl.. but then it just might be my vet.. There is no over the counter flea control as far as I know anymore even though they claim they control them.. they dont. There is a flea thread someone going on. here on Daves.. I think Red has the URL
Well anyway back to begonias..
On what a GPS.. thats my glorified potting shed.. go here to take a peak...
http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/1055573/
We are on series 7
I never have had any luck with Miracle (TM) anything...especially their potting mediums.. all I have ever gotten with them is a whole lot of damping off.. so its that and my water.... I have had luck with other mediums from other companies though.
Blossom. That is just my style. Now for a recliner and a glass of tea (or something) :).
Cheers! (__)?
Well, come on visit there any time.. I use it mainly for storage in the winter, but have gotten a lot of use out of that thing in 20 some odd years! You would be amazed what a 8x16 produces! My only regret, I did not get the biggest one at the time, but it was what it was and could afford at the time, paying itself off over and over!
There are at least 3 flea and tick PRESCRIPTION meds that are excellent - not cheap but well worth the price. The active ingredient is the same thing pros use for termite control and Bayer uses in their insect control. Bayer is the patent holder I believe.
That is the number one complaint I hear from greenhouse owners - too small. My old GH was 14 x 18 and it was filled to overflowing in 3 years. Now my new basement is the same way - about 2000 SF. I guess George Carlin was right.
LOL! First year it took me all of 3 days to get mine to over flowing! Silly me, I ordered 500 mum cuttings and they grew like rabbits.. I took more cuttings... In a short time I started moving them out doors and I had thousands of them in 4" pots and started bump ups to gallon pots then I opened to sell. The day I opened it was on April 19th.. same day Oklahoma got bombed...I had 4-5 inches of hail.. it clobbered my stuff outdoors. I knew I was in for the long haul with that thing!
Usually the middle of April is my last frost date... some frost that was! LOL!
Finally was able to get some milk! Gonna try that home recipe on the rexes and the wax begonias. The snail rex has spots.. the waxes have PM.. so will let ya'll know in a few days how goes it!
Worst I can do is kill them...hoping not though!
I picked all the majot bad leaves of and here goes.. spraying in the morning.
Last year I had white flies. This year, it's powdery mildew. I have sprayed ( outside) the affected area with sulfur and brought the plants back in after they have dried off. It's been 3 days and the are of the cane still look "fuzzy" and white. My question is:
the cane is rather tall ( 3 ft). Of course the middle section is affected. The top where there are still plenty of healthy looking leaves is fine. Should I "decapitate " the plant and start new again or what can I do with a PM middle section of a tall cane?
You can cut the cane if you want to. You can actually take the middle section and lay it horizontally in a pan of potting mix and you should get new shoots at some or all of the nodes. Keeping the plants warm and dry seems to help with mildew problems but we can't always give them what they need so do the best you can.
They are sprayed....aint they ugly! LOL!
Well, we shall see what the morning brings.. maybe the PMs will be gone.
Or should I be spraying them more than once with that moo-juice?
Ah, hope they make it through winter with some vitality, they love spring time too.
Kind of hard to tell due to the blur or out of focus. If the leaves are real bad, I would cut them off and discard so they won't produce more spores. Place under some bright light or in a sunny window and they should regain a lot of their vigor.
hcm, you've been recommending bright light for PM problem. Would artificial growth light work too?
Bright light, warmth, etc. would help a lot. Mold seems to grow best in cool, dank, dark areas. It's always there - just waiting for optimum growing conditions - kind of like B.O. or athlete's foot. Bacteria and fungus are opportunists don't you think?
Its a wee blurry.. dang I just cannot get the closeups with this camera. But it was not really as bad as the pix make them look!
If the milk works, I will probably pic these leaves off anyway on the next pruning of them and toss them since I do not have the space to do any more cuttings anyway for a while. So by the time I have room, hoping these plants will be clean we should be good to go again! That is if I do not kill them before!
helloooo! shes got a point.. mine are under brite light.. and still got PMs... And oh please.. if you tell my lilacs, monarda and some of the tall garden phlox outside that, they will wanna come indoors! I think right now my houseplants are enjoying more light than my garden plants!
I think some plants are just more susceptible to the PM than others as well. Why I dont know they just are!
Hmmmmmmm! I just had a crazy thought! Hey P, do yo think that that Moo-juice will kill the Blob? If so order me a tanker!
You are right on garden phlox, monarda, and lilacs being sensitve to mildew especially in hot humid regions so the solution is not to grow them or get cultivars that are resistant unless you want to spray on a regular basis. Same thing for roses, tomatoes, and a bunch of other plants for that matter.
Begonias do very well during hot humid days - it is the indoors that they have problems with unless you want to grow them indoors year round thereby minimizing exposure to spores of mold/mildew. I cannot imagine watering and caring for them 12 months indoors - 6 months of winter care is too much at times.
Let us know how the tanker works out - I kind of doubt you will sway many people over with milk spray but who knows. You could also try athlete's food powder and see if that works too (just kidding) or baking soda. I have used Lysol Mildew Spray in the past with limited results. If the leaves have spots on them then this method may stop the mildew but it sure makes the leaves look terrible.
Here is another mildew magnet - 'Benigo' While it looks great in summer, it is totally defoliated now in the garage with mildew entwined around most of the stems and the top half of the stems appear dead. If it croaks I will just buy another one next year for $5 if it becomes available.
I guess there are some things we have to live with >>> PM on the lilacs, monarda and GP may be some of them... BUT Ima refusing to live with that blob, its game time. Ima gunning for it that fungus/algae/bacteria beast has got to die!....Hmmm Hey P, how about a flame thrower?, they wont let me do agent orange!
I wrote to the BioWorks NE rep that I met this summer about the availability of Milstop in smaller sizes . I'll let you know what he has to say. It has really worked for me (I combine it with Cease) in the greenhouse. I also asked if Milstop could be used in a home.
Blossom, so far how are your begonias and cream doing? Tee hee. You can see that I had to type that.
Personally mildew is a small problem unless all your begonias are rexes, waxes, or mallets. Watering a few hundred pots, keeping leaves picked off, watching for dryness and rot, and other chores keeps my mind off most small mildew problems. It's like fungus gnats - they are pesky but unless there is a huge swarm of them they won't hurt anything (usually the cure can be worse than the symptoms in other words).
I got some carnivorous plants for the fungus gnats. They get some and that just makes me smile, lol..... Evil little nose flying bugs.
Like the fungus gnats that swarmed in the office a week after I gave all the secretaries amaryllis? Not good. I've never gifted a plant again.
Maybe it's because my greenhouse is cool, but I have more issues with fungus and pm than dryness or rot. A lot of my canes seem to be susceptible, even more so than the rexes. Did you have more issues when you grew in a greenhouse vs. your basement?
Fungus gnats do seem to hitch a ride in bulbs from the nursery. I think a small top layer of fine gravel would help eliminate them in this case or greatly diminish their numbers.
If I had mildew when I had the GH I didn't know it. Looking Glass looked terrible but at the time I didn't know it was PM doing a number on it. Rexes got spots on them but I didn't know what caused it then.
Some begonias just seem to be a lot more susceptible to PM than others and the mallets seem to be the absolute worst (not sure if Looking Glass falls in that group but Sinbad, Maurice Amey, Frosty, Don Miller, Benigo, Lynda Dawn, and a few more are). Mallets are stunning in summer but dogs in winter. Cool, damp weather seems to bring out the worst in PM. My canes in the garage have more mildew than the ones in the basement but then the garage is probably 40 - 50 while the basement is 60 - 70+. So my observations are warmth helps keep PM down and some begonias are more prone to PM.
I've lost all those canes at one time or another. I have both PM and spots - on my special angel, gypsy maiden, texas tea sipper and others. But we have a cool damp fall and I keep the plants outside (in the hopes of a return to warm weather) until frost. And then the greenhouse low temp is 60 -62. It would be warmer if only I could find a free source of heat at night! Your garage is the same temp as my basement!
I'm getting scanmask for the gnats. I've never tried it before. But I have a shipment of parasitic wasps and predatory mites coming, so I thought we'd add more little buggies.
'mom' they are looking like we might have the PM on the run.. A few more applications and we shall see. How often should I do that. The house is rather dry now that I have the heat on. I spose lite misting them once a day probably would not hurt.?
As for the blob, that thang froze but not to death. Go here for my update on that! But I warn you its a mess. Were talking flame throwers on that thing!
http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/1060531/
Blossom, when you say the PM are on the run, do you actually see a decrease in the size of the fuzzy patch? I sprayed my cane with sulfur and a few days later with neem. The spots on the leaves seem to have multiplied and I finally cut off the bad leaves and portions of the affected leaves on the larger leaves. I also have spots right in the middle of a 3 ft tall cane that has not gone away yet. I am afraid to decapitate the plant to start a new one though...
The PM actually is not as aggressive looking. I will be picking leaves off though soon. like tomorrow as its my pinching and cleanup day where I remove every thing from the shelves and go through every single pot, inspect them thoroughly and dump what needs it. etc. I can live with the PM right now..
I have plants in multy size pots so it makes it difficult to take care of them as if they were in same size pots so leaves may fall of and drop between the pots onto the shelves and etc.
I lost about 6 annuals. They have decied to call it quits. I will take those pots and remove them.
A moment of silence whilst I offer up all my begonias to the almighty compost heap. May they RIP!
Gone are my Rex, Gone are my waxes and gone are the Reigers..
While it looked for a bit that I had the PM under control, all it took was a week of neglect and WHAM.. they are history.
After over a month of trying to rid them of PM...I have learned one thing.. it may be far cheaper to dump them early than to treat them. I feel like I wasted my time.
On a good note though, I have had an explosion of impatien, coleus and mum cuttings to fill their void! Now all the indoor plants look very healthy!
BB,
Sorry to hear that. Don't feel bad. I think we have all been there. It certainly isn't easy when you first start but I promise if you stay with it you will get the feel of it. Rexes and some canes can be pretty fussy when it gets cool but there are so many others that do great. It's a shame the retailers don't label the plants on how easy they are to keep and also sell ones that are easy.
Here is one that I've had a few years. Looks like a rex but doesn't have the issue with PM. It does want to be watered regularly though. I think it is B. 'Bill Claybaugh'.
hc..., whoah that it lovely! Yeah, the retailers put either a pile of houseplants on a table no name one price and leave you guessing. Same on the rexes, they generic label them Rex, but do not tell you what pretty it is.
My supplyier of the rexes had about 10 new varieties when I was there last and I passed them by. Like you said.. the cool weather.. in my case the fridged drafty door going outside will leave its mark on the more sensative plants. I think my pepper plants are becomeing a victem of that, however they are sporting new leaves on their trunks while they lose the old so I dont know, guess there is still hope fr them to see spring!
If you like houseplants you might like this thread. There are some real beauties starting to show there! C'mon down and join us!
http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/1061641/
Owell, of the last 20 years doing plants in the house, that truly is the first time I ever had PM indoors! Live and learn!
Yeah, I noticed that thread off an on. I went through that phase a few years ago.
Well, my current house is a bit tough on house plants but I have discovered shear volume makes a difference. If I just have a few the house is too dry. I have two large plant stands loaded along with plants here and there in most of the rooms and with them all watered, the humidity is so much better. Takes me four days to water! (only because I am a finger pot poker whenit comes to watering.) But they all are a real pain in the tush making messes so I am really looking forward to spring and to boot them out of here to my GPS and start gardening outdoors. I will be starting seeds in the livingroom soon enough.. so im gonna have to clear some spaces to get those going to try to get a jump on stuff.
I really miss our old farm house. I had plants up the kazoo in the crawlspace. I could water with a hose down there and not worry about the mess until spring. Here I need to be carefull of the carpets..always cleaning and the crawl is to short and so I cannot stand up to do anything down there..
The first year we got our GPS I started enough plants in it and the old crawl to plant an acre. I had some 70 varieties of mums, umteen varieties of perennials, bulbs and a ton of annuals and veggies going.
When we moved we dug up that acre and brought all the plants here. My domestic gardens are about 3 acres here. Most of the perennials we brought are no longer with us, but have been replaced by something that will grow here. We flood so I will lose a bunch to that if they cannot handle the standing water. I have some 500+ varieties of dayliles out there and misc perennials.
Yeah, I will have to admit, the tropical houseplants are somewhat of a phase until I kill them and have to do something else! Dang gardening is an addiction.
I take it GPS is some kind of general potting shed and not a Global Positioning System?
Indoor gardening has its perils but it is very rewarding too. I turned to it due to winter blahs and veggie and flower gardening got boring after a few seasons - been there, done that if you know what I mean.
What's the cups for in your picture?
If you go to my threads you will see a series of what is titled the GLORIFIED POTTING SHED! C'mon in, have some fun there. I think we are up to #7 or #8, but if you start on the front, you will see a bunch of stuff we chat about there. Dont get to disturbed at some of the light hearted fun poked at each other. Some of us go waaaaay back!
The "cups" on my one plant shelf are from a silk flower display rack. I also do silk flowers and use them to sort my stock of them when doing crafting. Right now, my silk stock is put up. I have that snake gourd hanging there to dry. My hub made the shelf from conduit and some cheap panel board, a few florescent fixtures and whalah! That particular plant stand doubles as my shipping shelf! I put my boxes up on that thing when I am not doing plants. The lights can be removed and he even put wheels on it so we can roll it around if we need to move it. It barely will fit through a door!
Well, your winters cannot be as "blah" or maybe I best make that as long? as ours!
Hey Patty.. how about you start a NO LUCK PROPAGATING #2 this thread of yours is taking a bit of time to load!
Our winters are about six months (potential frost) going from late October until the middle of April but I don't trust the middle of April either since we had temps in the teens just a few years ago the middle of April.
I'll pass on joining in on the glorified potting shed but glad to know I was close on my assumption.
Looks like you've covered all the bases. If live plants don't work out, you have silk ones to back you up.
LOL! Well I cant beleive my lying eyes! Those rex that had the PM, I thought they died and well I forgot about them and was gonna toss them... they are back! Nioce leaves on them now too for little leaves.. Hope they stay that way! LOL!
I will have to shoot them ta show them off!
So, well guys, what do you think we start a new propagating thread for the begoins, a part two?
By all means, go ahead and start a new thread.
I mentioned that you should never throw away a plant for a few months - you never know if it will come back from the dead (or roots).
I threw out two pots of peace lilies about 3 years ago (my grandmother's funeral and my brother's funeral plants) on the compost heap. The next year I noticed some green shoots on the compost heap - yep the peace lilies had come back from the grave in a manner of speaking. I put them in a tray for the next year where they waxed and waned. Last year I finally put them in a proper pot with some good potting soil and you would think they were store bought last week. Begonias may not be quite as hardy but I've seen some come back from nothing (not after being outdoors all winter though).
Awesome! And yano, I threw some peace lilies out last year.. I thought they were done. I never new to keep them!
OK, I will get a new Begonias No luck Propagating up and running should have it later this afternoon!