My mother loves tuberous Begonias--a tropical genus named for the french patron of science Michel Begon (1638-1710). She has for decades grown them in handmade hanging baskets of redwood slats--a once common receptacle in California garden centers that I think now are somewhat rare. (I seem to recall seasonal "peddlers" hawking them door to door.) She'd haul the baskets out of the tool shed when the sprouts appeared, pale green points emerging from the dry mulch. Then she'd hang them around the yard in shady spots--under the house eaves or from a tree branch--and they'd rapidly grow to bouquet size, dangling large, impossibly colored blooms from the baskets. Both the colors and the shape of Begonias seemed bizarre to me. Somewhat rose-like in form they appear to be made of tissue paper. Very frilly, in girlish shades of peach and pink.
Sydney B. Mitchell*, in "Your California Garden and Mine," tells us that most commercial tuberous begonias are grown in this state, and that it is cheaper to buy young seedling plants between May 14 and June 15 than to purchase the tubers. They flower in summer and autumn and so are valuable color in the waning days when other flowers are spent. But they are very particular about food and water. Mitchell writes, "The preference of the tuberous begonias is for light sandy soils, composed largely of humus, leaf mold, or peat. " And they require additional nutrients such as fish or cottonseed meal as well as fertilizer later in the season which must be kept "...away from leaves or tuber by making a shallow furrow around the edge of the pot...Watering is very important, just a gentle spray until the plants get going, then regular supplies but never from hard packing streams....In autumn as the foliage turns yellow, water is diminished until the plants die down, then all soil is gently washed off and the tubers stored in a cool dry place over winter. "
That is a lot of trouble to go to for what to me is a strangely unsatisfying plant. But there's no accounting for taste in garden plants. If I confess to not liking begonias I have to also admit my weakness for clematis--in any color or form.
*A Canadian-born former librarian at Stanford University and the original editor of the California Horticultural Society journal (now Pacific Horticulture).
Posted by briggs at December 1, 2002 9:50 PM