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| Last years, and the year before's, and the year before's begonias ready to hang on the front porch. |
First week of summer -- do you know what that means? This is when I finally hang our overwintered baskets of begonias by the front door.
Every spring, garden centers fill with rows of beautiful begonias, and every autumn, most of those plants end up in the compost pile. In our modern throwaway culture, we’ve been conditioned to treat these spectacular bloomers as disposable annuals. But over the years, I've discovered that with just a little bit of autumn care (and the right garage temps), begonias can become long-term companions in the garden. Today, I’m sharing the two distinct types of begonias I grow and exactly how I overwinter them to enjoy years of beautiful, cost-free blooms.
Begonias are divided into 4 categories, Cane, Rhizomatous, Tuberous, and Wax. I grow the last two, as they were readily available in nurseries in my area when I purchased them, and secondly, they keep coming back for me. Why ruin a good thing and change varieties, right?
Tuberous Begonias
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| the first year I potted these |
Tuberous begonias are the showy (and sometimes massive) blooms that dazzle in vibrant shades of pink, salmon, yellow, and red. They spill over the edges of hanging baskets beautifully, and do well in those too-shady-to-grow-just-about-anything places. You can count on non-stop blossoms until early fall.
This variety needs a true dormant period in order to overwinter. If they are planted in the ground, the tuber needs to be dug up in the fall before first frost, then covered with peat moss, sand, or a dry granular substance like vermiculite and stored in a cool indoors location for the winter. If they have been growing in pots or baskets, the whole pot/basket needs to be moved to that sheltered place.
I overwinter ours in the garage, which is an attached garage and contains our furnace. It remains in the 40s to about 50 degrees F all winter in the garage (warmer closer to the furnace), which is the ideal temperature range for storing the tubers in dormancy, whether or not in soil. I keep the baskets about 5 feet from the furnace. The pots/baskets are allowed to fully dry out while in the garage. Moisture is the enemy, as they would cause the tuber to rot. Some gardeners overwinter dug-up begonia tubers in cold storage areas of their basements with success.
In mid-spring, after our last frost, I bring the baskets to the deck on the sunny side of the house. I begin watering periodically, but not excessively -- just enough for the soil in the baskets to be barely damp. Once new growth begins to show through the soil, I pick up the watering a bit. I keep them here for a month or two while they put on new growth. Last week I transplanted some Creeping Jenny to each basket, dug from an area where hanging vines rooted from a pot on the ground last season. I kept the baskets on the deck for this past week to make sure the Creeping Jenny received enough water to root well. Today I moved the hanging baskets to the north-northwest side of the house, where tuberous begonias do well. They will begin blooming sometime in July.
Wax Begonias
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| one of the pots of wax begonias and Creeping Jenny that I overwintered in our garage |
Wax begonias are typically sold as bedding plants. The blossoms are small, but provide non-stop blooming from late spring through early fall. Wax begonias can tolerate more sun than the other types. I typically set them out in partial shade areas.
Wax begonias grow from a rooted system and not from tubers or bulbs. Keeping them overwinter is slightly different as a result. Unlike the tuberous ones, wax begonias don't need a true dormancy. They require a slightly warmer overwintering location than tuberous, in the range of 50 to 60 degrees, and are kept in the soil the entire winter. Some folks bring wax begonias indoors to a cool room in their home to overwinter as a houseplant.
What has worked for me is to move the pots into the garage around the same time as the tuberous begonia baskets, before the first frost (mid-October). I keep a couple of pots and 2 baskets of wax begonias closer to the furnace than the tuberous ones. And I give them minimal water, just barely enough to survive. Experts suggest placing the pots near a garage window or under a grow light. Ours do okay without any windows, only receiving light when either the man-door or the drive-through door is opened (a couple to few times per day). While the tuberous begonias have always come back for me, I have lost a small percentage of the wax begonia plants, likely due to my negligence. Truth be told, I really want a hands-off flowering plant for overwintering, and that would be the tuberous begonias. As I do with the tuberous ones, I bring the pots and baskets out to the deck in mid-spring, when I am certain we have seen the last frost. I begin watering them as I would any live plant. They perk up more quickly than the tuberous begonias and are in full blossom mode by early June.
There is a unique kind of satisfaction that comes from bringing those sleeping plants out of the cold, dark garage and into in the early April sunshine, then watching them spring back to life. It isn’t just about saving ten or twenty dollars at the nursery; it’s about the quiet joy of keeping something alive, year after year, and working in harmony with the seasons.
Your Turn: I would love to hear about the survivors in your own garden! What surprise plants did you find in your garden this year? Do you actively dig or store plants over winter to bring them out when spring arrives? Is there anything you do or neglect to do that encourages nature's free production of new plants? What are your best tips for obtaining free flowering plants?
I second the wax begonias! Because we are more temperate, some I planted one year near a warm brick wall bloomed til mid December one year. I remember because they were still blooming when we hosted a Christmas party! And with my benign neglect, they returned the next couple of years, with diminishing returns til they finally gave up the ghost!
ReplyDeleteThis year,, we have masses of self seeded impatience plants! My DH did plant some last year after some of our garden plants didn’t make it. Now they are blooming amidst our pepper and tomato plants. They were even trying to grow in a crack in the sidewalk. I smile when I look out and see them all mixed in with our vegetables’ growth!
On the wax begonia front, they do well in terrariums.
ReplyDeleteI plant a row of them in front of our house each year. They do well there and require essentially no care. Later in the summer, volunteers come up from last years plants. I dig up the little plants and have had great success planting these in terrariums. They can last for a couple of years in there without any care. When we had cats, we had several terrariums to keep the cats out our indoor plants so I tried various things. I also like to give terrariums as gift and often put a begonia in them.