Begonias

My pride and joy,just stating to show there colours

lovely Deida

so pretty deida, so colourfull

Thanks my hubby calls them tissue flowers

awww lovely name for them deida,,

So pretty.

Thanks Clarice..hope the weather will be kind to them

They look so pretty Deida............

Lovely blooms and colours well done, Question for hubby does he normally wipe his nose on begonias then?LMAO

Thanks everybody
lol Morgana

:)

Fantastic array of colours!

Thanks PP ..they look even better now.after a few days of sunshine

Its great to see the effect of just a little ray of sunshine on both our plants and ourselves isnt it!

Very pretty border Deida....so colourful...

Thanks Janette

This is a great display. I like the contrasting ageretum too. A lively collection.

my favourites. What do you do with them over the winter Deida?

very nice Deida - where did you buy your plugs?

Skillen, these are annuals

Got the plugs over the net, from "Gardening Direct"

I bought 200 from Gardening Direct, Deida but they just never took - never grew any bigger than the plugs and the roots never extended either. Some of the stems seemed to rot. Never knew if I was over watering or underwatering - tried both but it made no difference - chucked the whole lot out in the end. The weren't tubers though - just plants. I've read somewhere since that John Innes No2 compost is the best. Perhaps mine was too rich !

What a shame ..you must have had a bad batch,which is unusual for Gardening Direct..how much did you pay for the plugs? I would have asked for a refund..mine are only annuals and not tubers.
did you plant the plugs straight into the garden or did you grow them on?
I feel for you,it is heartbreaking

Yes I agree GD is usually good so I guess it must be something I did or didn't do with the plants. All our plants are grown in the greenhouse, until well established & when half-potting out size are transferred to polytunnel or coldframes to harden off. 1st batch of begonias were 250no of the smallest plugs (on potting up only about 120 had survived in the post - rest crushed & very dry). They replaced some & I bought some of the biggest ones to see if that made any difference but it didn't - they just stayed at the same size all the time despite "miracle grow". Giving them water, not giving them water - I tried everything. Thought I'd get some tubers for next year as a last try, so was pleased to get the freebies from a work colleague. Now things don't look too promising for them either. Got to admit I've grown lots of different flowers over the years with great success but begonias seem to beat me.

So, some have tubers and others don't?

Seems so Skillen - I just know that the smaller ones (usually the wee white & red ones you buy) & some like in this pic have no tubers (corms) & only last a year, while others (the bigger ones) can last for years if you winter the corms. CraziDi has a good blog on how to store corms etc.

Yes I've seen Crazi Di's blog - thanks for that CG.