Brilliance of begonias

This is a success story. Begonias do not loom large in Sarah Raven's The Bold and Brilliant Garden and it is easy to imagine why.  In the last century they had a bad reputation.  They were exactly the sort of insubstantial regulation-municipal-garden plants which one wanted to avoid: small, with small flowers and unenticing foliage.

In recent years they've improved no end.  The great step forward was when Begonia 'Glowing Embers' came on the market.  It is a terrific looking plant with stunning orange flowers and interesting dark foliage.  Many other lovely varieties came in its wake.

Begonias have a host of advantages.  They flower for ages from summer to late autumn.  They are often happy in shade as well as in sun.  They can survive a certain amount of neglect.  Some survive winter and come back for years on end.  Above all they are great for the Bold and Brilliant Garden as they can come in wonderful shades of orange, red, yellow and bright pink.

The picture above is of the view from my French windows.  It's thankfully shady and I love to stuff it with colour.  Here I use my top favourite mixture of pink and orange.  The pink comes from a choice hydrangea called "Forever Pink" which as its name suggests continues to produce flowers all summer.  The orange comes from a begonia.  I bought it as an unnamed variety in Chatham High Street, Kent, and it has survived several winters overwintered in an unheated greenhouse, bouncing back from its tuber in late spring.  It is superb.  

 After several years raising begonias I think this is actually the best way to buy them: find one you like ready-grown from a market stall or florist's or DIY chain or garden centre.  Yes, some are expensive, but some are surprisingly cheap considering their value as plants.  Ones which have the begonia boliviensis type leaf - long, slim and green - may well be the best winter survivors.

Lucky purchase from a plant stall in Eltham.  Inexpensive, it has given me months of colour in semi-shade.  If you see a begonia you like, snap it up.

 

I have also raised begonias from plugs.  I have found them more difficult to keep alive than other plugs (such as for instance osteospermums where I have a 100% success rate).  It is easy to give begonia plugs too much water or too much sun.  Nonetheless I have had good summer results from lovely varieties.   For orange flowers, I can recommend plugs of "Pear Drops", "Orange Drops", "Apricot Shades Improved" and "Bossa Nova Night Fever Papaya".  Unexpectedly the heatwave summer of 2022 proved the least good year for begonia plugs.  The survival rate was good but it took ages for them to become big plants.  Perhaps they prefer a damper summer.

If you like the begonias that you have raised in pots but do not have a sheltered space where you can overwinter them, it is nonetheless worthwhile simply planting them in a bed at the end of the season.  They may well bounce back the next year.  I am writing in September and it is joyful to see begonias of previous years (some of which I'd forgotten) in flower in the beds.  In my garden they do so quite late in the season; I think it depends on how sunny your beds are, so you may be luckier.  

Last year my favoured nursery sent me the wrong begonias as plugs.  They were supposed to be orange but I ended up wtih massive plants with huge over-the-top pink flowers.   The nursery apologised and refunded, but to be honest it was a good mistake: the bonkers flowers made me smile. Not all errors are bad.

These coral-red begonias, adding boldness and brilliance to my early-September garden, were another lucky purchase - this time from my local garden centre.  Oddly this variety was their cheapest. I have four in my focal tubs.