BLUSHING BEGONIAS
These colourful beauties will cheer your pots, sills and baskets
Those of us who want to enjoy a show of tuberous begonias this summer should get cracking. For summer colour, dry tubers need to be started off in the spring. Plugs or young plants are also available, but will need to be grown frost-free until planting out from mid-May.
Tuberous begonias were my dad’s pride and joy. Back in the seventies, he grew monster show-bench varieties with flowers like technicolour cabbages. Mother hated them and said so. often.
You can still buy big-flowered begonias like those, but there’s a much wider choice today with varieties to suit every taste.
Colours range from strident red, orange or yellow through softer tones of lemon, pink, salmon or white. Foliage can be shapely and beautiful, often with bronze markings or distinctively shaped leaves.
There are tuberous begonias with pendant growth — perfect for tubs or hanging baskets. others, more rounded in outline, are great for bedding out or to grow in patio containers.
some even have edible leaves and petals, so can be used to bring a little more zest to your summer salads. Dry tubers should still be available from garden centres or online suppliers. Plug plants are also widely available, usually for mail order purchase. suppliers include Parkers ( jparkers.
co.uk), Unwins ( unwins.co.uk) and many more.
Plant several tubers into a seed tray or set individually into pots filled with fresh potting compost. Keep them cosy and moist, but not saturated.
If you are able to provide bottom heat with a propagator, they’ll sprout more quickly. Plug plants need potting up on arrival. All begonias must be protected from frost. Keep yours in a greenhouse, on a windowsill, or in a cold frame until it’s safe to plant them out. If you grew begonias last year and kept the dry tubers, start those off now.
When you plan your summer planting, make sure you know how large your begonias will grow, then select suitablysized containers. Begonias have one huge advantage over most summer container plants in that they’re surprisingly shade-tolerant. While petunias, pelargoniums and so on need full sun, begonias enjoy sun or partial shade. And even if they flower less freely in shade, the leaves can be attractive.
BegonIAs respond well to fertiliser, so feed weekly or every ten days. Use general plant-food until mid- June, then switch to high potash tomato feed to keep those flowers coming. It’s a matter of taste but begonias often look better in limited colour schemes rather than mixtures. They pack a huge floral punch, too. That makes them superb on their own or with modest foliage nearby.
For traditional bedding, the non- stop series has been around for decades, but is still excellent. Colours include pink, red, yellow or white — and they really do flower non-stop.
Among pendulous begonias, Champagne carries a constant run of flushed apricot flowers and pretty leaves. A wild species, Begonia
boliviensis, stages an explosion of fiery flowers with narrow drooping petals. The colour may be too hot for some tastes but the Million Kisses series has gentler tones.
Young sweet peas should be planted outside as soon as possible. They prefer fertile soil that is in good condition and full sun. If growing in rows for cutting, set your young plants 30cm apart.
For cordon growing, allow one stem to develop on each plant. You’ll need 3m canes for tying in the stems as they develop. Metal sweet pea rings are best for that and are reusable.
As individual stems grow, remove all side shoots and pinch off the tendrils as they appear.
The leaves will grow large and the flowers will appear at the base of each leaf stalk.
Training plants in this way results in long- stemmed, topquality blooms.
If you prefer to grow yours more naturally, allow multiple stems to scramble over pea sticks or up trellis or widegauge netting.
To ensure a long flowering season, never allow seed pods to develop.
gather newly opened flowers for the house or dead-head all fading flowers before they begin to seed.
LET GROUND DRY OUT
AFTer the cold, wet weather, most of us are behind with spring work. But don’t be in a hurry. The ground is still soaked in many regions and easily damaged.
Keep off wet land until the water has drained away and the surface has become dry.
even then, take great care not to compact the soil by walking over it too soon.
If there are puddles on your lawn, check your drainage. A fork pushed into soggy spots will help with this.