For Begonia Growers

Vivien Bouffard vbouffard55@msn.com
Wed, 08 Mar 2017 17:26:49 PST
Norton, I haven't grown those species, only fancy hybrid tuberous begonias from commercial seed.  They are extremely slow-growing; I start them fairly early in January to have plants to pot up outside in May.  I just looked and see no signs of tubers on my still-tiny plants.  I don't try to hurry the seedlings, just keep them alive while they're trying to bulk up, by keeping them warm and moist. I think Gianluca is right about the tubers coming later in the plant's development.  I know that by the end of summer, I'll have nice tubers to keep.

My experience in the genus probably has little or no relevance to your two particular species, but who knows.  Good luck with them.

Vivien
Norwood, MA
Zone 6



<Message: 3

Date: Tue, 7 Mar 2017 19:21:48 +0000

From: norton cuba melly <nortonc26@hotmail.com<mailto:nortonc26@hotmail.com>>

To: "pbs@lists.ibiblio.org<mailto:pbs@lists.ibiblio.org>" <pbs@lists.ibiblio.org<mailto:pbs@lists.ibiblio.org>>

Subject: [pbs] For Begonia Growers

Message-ID:

                <BY1PR0801MB11414BEC21EDB6148232740EAE5B0@BY1PR0801MB1141.namprd08.prod.outlook.com<mailto:BY1PR0801MB11414BEC21EDB6148232740EAE5B0@BY1PR0801MB1141.namprd08.prod.outlook.com>>



Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"



Hello everyone,



I have been germinating begonias from seed. The species I?m growing are Begonia geraniifolia and Begonia octopetala, both grow in any of the "Lomas" of Peru near the coast and in some parts of the Andes in more elevated areas. There is not much information about them. They are tuberous begonias and the tubers are very superficial.



They took a month to germinate and I?ve seen them get bigger in the main leaf, but on the first three months the tuber has only gotten as big as a quinoa seed.



Questions:

>Is this normal? Do they need more light maybe? How can I make them grow a bit faster?

> I read on the internet that when they have 3 leaves you can start giving them one drop of fertilizer( fish emulsion) directly to the tuber, once every 2 weeks to help them develop , is this true?



To see pictures follow this links

Begonia geraniifolia: https://goo.gl/Bcyrgk/ Begonia octopetala: https://goo.gl/oGJDnz/



Best regards

Norton>




More information about the pbs mailing list