Beautiful Begonia for Your Home

Healthy vigorous begonia can turn into something like this.

Begonia (Begoniaceae) is wonderful indoor plant, instead of beautiful leaves they also have beautiful flower in some species. Flower enthusiast has breed new cultivars that producing wonderful flowers. This plant is native to moist and warm regions of south-east Asia and makes it suitable to be out in moist area such as in the bathroom or kitchen.

The mark on B. masoniana.

For wonderful color of leaves the B. masoniana (iron cross) has the wonderful dark purple cross mark on their leaves, while the texture is little bit hairy with heart-shaped. The size can be up to 5 in across and 8 in long on a hairy pink-red stalk.

Large amount of begonia cultivar.

While B. rex has a larger leaves with longer shape heart shape. The colors are richer with silver, cream, pink, purple and darker color.

They’re huge amount of cultivars for begonias. Since the hybridized can be done easily within the genus, the number of cultivars will keep on growing. There are few major groups that classifies by the American Begonia Society;

• -          cane-like
• -          shrub-like
• -          rhizomatous
• -          semperflorens (wax or fibrous rooted begonias)
• -          Rex
• -          trailing-scandent
• -          thick-stemmed

Young begonia-semperflorens.

Buying hints: Plants that reach 6 inches tall is the best size since it has good chances to grow healthy with more reasonable price. Inspect the leaves to be well in shape with no signs of browning or curling. It is also important to make sure that the plant is not infected by any fungal diseases.

General care: Grow in peat or loam-based potting compost and make sure the good drainage always maintain. The need to repotting is when roots put through the drainage holes.

Light: To help begonias produce more foliage put the plants in the areas with filtered lights. Bright areas but not with direct sunlight are the best ideas. They also can be grown with artificial light.

Hanging is one of the best way for begonia.

Temperature: The low temperature for begonia should not be lower than 50 °F even though the best temperature is 60 °F.

Humidity: It is important to get the air surrounding the begonia humid to imitate the tropical forest. The suitable ways to do this are the double pot technic and the pebble trays. Mist sprays may cause die-back.

Watering and Feeding: Watering the plant only when the soil feels dry to avoid crown rot if the soil is soaked for a length of time. During the winter only watering when the plants show obvious signs of wilting. To maintain continuously healthy growing begonia use liquid feeds every two weeks.

Flowering begonia will strikingly beautiful. 

Propagation: Sow seeds in early spring at the temperature of 65 °F. Take cutting from healthy leaves and root in propagator.

Disorder: Do regular check on your plants for grey mold can cause blackish-brown blotches on the leaves. Mildew also can grow underside of the leaves. While root knot eelworm attacks the roots leads the plant to die.