Growing Begonias

2024 Author: Sebastian Paterson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:47

Begonia - a flower for a shady flower bed or balcony

The fragile stems of plants are tied up

As you know, the overwhelming majority of bright spectacular colors develop normally and, moreover, they strongly disagree to bloom in the shade. At the same time, not all flower beds can be located in brightly lit areas of the garden. For example, on our site there are most shady places, and there is nothing to be done about it, because next to the fence we have a forest with all the ensuing consequences in the form of an inevitable shadow.

Of course, all the well-lit areas in my garden are set aside for greenhouses, fruit and vegetable crops, because in partial shade the chances of getting their harvest are zero. Flower gardens and decorative areas can be content with what is left - that is, partial shade and even shadow.

Therefore, I do not give preference to flowers, but to a variety of shade-tolerant ornamental plants - mostly conifers. However, one cannot do with conifers, because bright colors are also needed. Not so many plants can provide them. And one of them is tuberous begonia, which has taken root well in our garden for a long time, feels good and fits perfectly into the landscape.

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This plant impresses with a variety of varieties with truly royal flowers of the most striking colors and can rightfully compete with many other exotic flowering plants from the tropics and subtropics. However, on our site, the main advantage of begonias is the ability to put up with a lack of light and survive in our difficult climatic conditions. True, for this you need to adhere to some agrotechnical tricks, otherwise the whole idea of planting a tuberous begonia will be doomed to failure.

Choosing tubers when buying

To begin with, it is hardly possible to get hold of this flower by borrowing a couple of tubers from neighbors. Most likely, you will have to buy tubers. In principle, this is not a problem, since they are now offered on the shelves of, probably, any specialized stores. But there is one caveat - you can buy tubers in a package or by the piece. When purchasing tubers in a package, you run a high risk, since it is difficult to carefully examine them, and the probability of acquiring planting material, which turns out to be very weak or completely unviable, is very high.

It is better to buy tubers by the piece, meticulously examining each of them, and choose only dense to the touch and not too large (about 5 cm in diameter) specimens with the most rounded shape. You should not take flat tubers, because these are usually tubers in old plants, which will bloom worse and please you not for long. Let me remind you: the begonia tuber retains its vital activity for an average of 5-6 years.

As for the sprouts, then, of course, it is safer to purchase tubers with barely hatched sprouts, but, as a rule, this is possible only when buying them in the second half of March. In February and early March, there should not be any sprouts on the tubers with proper storage. However, it is better not to delay the purchase of planting material, since at the beginning of the sales season the choice is much richer, and by April in most stores there are tubers that have not yet found a buyer: it is clear that at this time it is much more difficult to stumble upon high-quality and healthy material.

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Begonia sprouting tricks

Begonia looks interesting in combination with different plants.

Store-bought begonia tubers (as well as tubers stored in their bins) are first sprouted at home. It is necessary to determine the tubers for germination already in March - this will allow you to get flowering plants in June, since it usually takes about three months from planting the tubers to the appearance of the first flowers.

Before planting, it is advisable to treat the tubers with stimulants so that the flower buds wake up as soon as possible, and there are more sprouts. Previously, I limited myself to soaking tubers in Epin, and last year I soaked them for the first time in the more effective stimulant Mival Agro (it ensures the germination of more eyes, active growth in the initial period of development and accelerates the formation of a powerful root system) - the result was encouraging.

Before that, always on the tubers (and I have been growing tuberous begonias for more than 10 years), most often two growth buds (sometimes one or three) woke up, and this time, after processing, 3-4 buds woke up on each of our tubers (on tubers purchased in the store, less, but these tubers were weak). There were even six flower buds on one tuber (although it was the oldest tuber), and it had to be divided into two parts. In this case, it is not difficult to divide the tubers - you need to disinfect a sharp knife in potassium permanganate, carefully cut the tuber, lubricate the slices with ordinary brilliant green and leave to dry.

Later, after about a couple of hours in the dry air of the apartment, plant it in the same way as other tubers. There is nothing dangerous in the operation of dividing tubers, but such plants usually bloom a little later than those whose tubers have not been divided.

Tubers are usually germinated in small, shallow containers (plastic mayonnaise cans are suitable) or in peat pots.

Germinate begonias in low containers

You can also germinate directly in pots or baskets in which they will grow, if we are talking about ampel varieties that cannot be planted in the ground. The tubers are lightly pressed into the slightly moist soil with the convex side down, in no case deepening the upper part of the tuber.

It should rise 1-2 mm above the soil surface or be slightly dusted. Honestly, when germinating the tubers, it is better not to sprinkle it with soil, but to do it later, when planting the plants in the ground. This makes it easier to prevent moisture from entering their grooves. At the same time, it is also undesirable to allow excessive drying of the surface of the tubers, and with dry air in apartments this is a common thing. To avoid drying out, containers with sprouting tubers are best placed in plastic bags, and the bottom of the pallets should be lined with sphagnum.

The only dangerous moment during germination is watering the tubers: this should be done very carefully - so that moisture in no case gets into the groove on the tuber, otherwise it can easily rot. If this suddenly happened, then you need to remove the moisture with an ordinary paper napkin, and dry the tuber itself. To prevent such situations, it is better to water the begonia tubers from the bottom - through the pallet. Of course, you need to water only with warm water, since tuberous begonia is a child of the tropics, and at first it is very moderate.

Planting tubers in a permanent place

Against the background of any plants, begonia is always a queen

Begonia is planted in flower beds when the threat of frost has passed - it is possible earlier, but only if the plants are protected with a covering material. The latter option, frankly, is preferable, since this will allow you to admire the luxurious flowers by mid-June, but provided that you started germination in March.

Begonia can be planted in containers earlier, but at the slightest threat of frost, the containers will have to be brought onto the veranda, since these plants cannot withstand even light frosts.

When planting, the tuber is buried by 1-2 cm. After the onset of hot summer weather, which often coincides with the beginning of flowering, the plants are watered abundantly (begonia is moisture-loving), but still not so much that the soil is constantly very moist, since then the roots will rot … In other words, the soil should dry out a little from above between waterings.

Further care

Begonias completely put up with a lack of light and grow well in partial shade (even under tree crowns), but direct sunlight is completely contraindicated for them - the leaves are burned (black or brown dry spots appear on them - traces of sunburn), and the plants suffer noticeably. This nuance should be considered when choosing a landing site. As my practice shows, in the garden in shady flower beds, they feel very good.

But attempts to grow begonias in containers and on balconies are not always successful. In containers, if they are not located on the walls of buildings that are too overheated in the heat, there is one problem - the rapid drying of the soil. Therefore, to exclude such cases, I used to put moss in containers, now I found another way - I plant tubers only in soil with hydrogel.

Things are a little different on balconies. In our northern loggia, begonias grow in huge boxes without any problems, but in the southern one, all attempts to tame them ended in failure due to the too high temperature, because in the heat it turns out to be much higher than the permissible + 25 ° C. And these plants do not tolerate such heat very well. Theoretically, in such cases, it is recommended to cool the pots with plants in all possible ways: place them in wet peat, sawdust or in a tray with wet pebbles and constantly moisten this substrate. But in practice, for most flower growers, all this is not realistic, because in addition to monitoring the state of begonias, everyone has other problems.

The soil for begonias must be fertile and breathable: the best soil mixture is a mixture of 3 parts of humus soil, 2 parts of peat and 1 part of sand. If the soil is not fertile enough, then throughout the season the plants will have to be fed with a weak solution of complex mineral fertilizer.

Unfortunately, sometimes plants, even under seemingly favorable conditions, begin to feel not very good. This is usually due to insufficient or excessive watering. In this case, the leaves begin to turn yellow on the begonias, and the tubers can even rot. In the Urals, as a rule, there is a second problem more often: excessive moisture, which is a consequence of prolonged torrential rains.

Taught by bitter experience, we build mini-shelters over the plants from the rain. By the way, it is worth noting: if the rot on the tuber was noticed immediately, then it can be saved by removing the soil from the top of the tuber, removing the decayed fragments, sprinkling the place of rotting with coal powder and temporarily stopping all watering.

And one more nuance: the stems of begonias are very fragile, and in strong winds they break easily, moreover, at the point of exit from the tuber. Therefore, it is necessary to provide for some kind of non-conspicuous support or garter, otherwise after a strong downpour with a gusty wind, you will not count on some of the shoots on the plants.

Storage of tubers

Since buying begonias tubers every year is still expensive, you should learn how to store them correctly in the winter. In principle, it's not that difficult. The storage conditions of these tubers are approximately the same as those of gladioli. True, if you have a room that is suitable in terms of temperature.

However, the tubers should be properly prepared for storage first. To do this, after the first light autumn frosts, the stems are cut at a height of several centimeters. In the Urals, such a period comes too early, so we keep the plants in the ground for some time, but already under shelters, so that the tubers are better formed. After pruning, the tubers are dug out without shaking them off the ground and without touching the old roots, and transferred in cardboard boxes to the apartment for drying.

Drying at room temperature takes about two weeks. Then the remnants of the stems are removed, often by this time they themselves can fall off. And after that, the tubers are placed in a mixture of dry peat with sand (the tops of the tubers are also covered), where they should be stored in winter at a temperature of about + 2 … + 5 ° C. Those who constantly live outside the city should have a similar temperature in the basements. Everyone else has to be sophisticated.

For example, we store tubers in a closed box in a mixture of dry sand and peat at the entrance - we have a section of the entrance adjacent to the apartments fenced off, and the temperature there is maintained at the required level. There are also recommendations to store tubers in paper bags in the lower compartment of the refrigerator, but in this way I have never been able to save any tubers in this way, with the exception of the potato superelite, and even then with tangible losses. However, someone succeeds …

In February - March, the tubers need to be removed from the improvised storage and start germinating.

Svetlana Shlyakhtina,

Yekaterinburg

Photo by the author