Begonias in the garden – 5

Only July and already I am writing about Begonias, stalwarts of my late or very late summer display. I continue to add more forms to my collection and such is the impact that some are already making that it seemed appropriate to write a few notes about them, even at the risk of having to revisit the subject later on.

The variety I obtained as B. aff. panchtharensis in 2021 has been identified by Nick Macer of Pan Global Plants, who collected it, as B. pedatifida ‘Apalala’. It made prodigious growth last year, its first in the ground, and lifting it to take under cover for winter wasn’t really practical. I left it out and covered it with leaves. It sailed through the winter and started into growth so early, in January or February, that I failed to notice its new leaves poking through the leaves until after they had been singed by frost. I removed the leaves and kept a bag of them dry to toss over the plant if frost threatened again. They were used once or twice and removed as soon as possible. It is now in full leaf and is producing flowers on rather short shoots under the foliage canopy. The biggest leaves are 30cm wide and 50 cm tall. I have watered it a few times as it starts to wilt if too dry; it may be that more water would have resulted in longer flower stems.

I picked up B. koelzii on Desert to Jungle’s stand at a plant fair in Tremenheere garden last August. It’s another of Nick Macer’s collections, from Manipur in Northern India and probably should have had his collection number, NJM 12.077, on it, unless Desert to Jungle obtained their stock from elsewhere. It has very large and deeply divided palmate leaves and produces bulbils in the centre of them where they attach to the petiole. It had one when I bought it and that is now growing away as a small independent plant. I planted the original out in spring and it is doing very well. It is already starting to make bulbils on a couple of leaves and I am hoping for pink flowers later in the summer. Architecturally I would say it edges even B. pedatifida, having more sharply pointed leaves finely edged red. The petioles are attractively red spotted too if you don’t mind getting on your hands and knees to see them. The largest leaves are 30cm wide and the long central lobe 25cm or more.

B. ‘Garden Angel Blush’ was as good last year as any plant in my garden. I had planted a 2L plant flanked by two in 9cm pots; come late autumn I lifted the two smaller plants and left the other one in, covering it over with dry leaves as I had B. pedatifida. The smaller plants were potted into 2L pots and overwintered in a (just) frost free glasshouse. One of them is now back out with the plant that stayed outside and is doing rather better than it is. It is early yet, so I confidently expect a repeat of last year’s performance, given a modest amount of watering.
I found a plant of B. ‘Garden Angel Silver’ at Trevenna Cross Nursery and purchased it even though it looked a little past its sell by date. It is now in the ground and slowly beginning to grow away.

U614, formerly, and wrongly, identified as B. sikkimensis, was another where I left one plant in the ground and lifted another to pot up and overwinter under glass. The latter is still in its pot and is certainly the better plant, but the one in the ground came through more or less unscathed with a covering of leaves, started into growth extremely early, necessitating the replacement of its leaf protection if frost threatened. It is now fully in leaf and strutting its stuff, the best it has looked this early in the year. It has been a regular flowerer, very late in the year.
Photographs give a misleading impression of its size, the tightly packed and deeply divided leaves make a big plant look much smaller than it is; my potted plant is in a 10L pot and the central lobes of its leaves are up to 20cm long.
I raised a few seedlings from its seed a few years back, one of which has none of the silvering of the original’s foliage. Two others are very similar to their parent.

I was given B. emeiensis a couple of years ago but the plant has never really taken off. It is growing better this year but still not really strongly. I purchased another in autumn 2022 which seems a lot more robust and is now in the ground and growing satisfactorily in rather poor soil that dries out quicker than is ideal. Like B. pedatifida it wilts rather quickly if it gets too dry. I purchased a plant of B. pedatifida at the same time, which is still in its pot. I am curious to see if/how it differs from B. pedatifida ‘Apalala’.

During the winter, when both were completely dormant, I was given plants of B. sutherlandii ‘Saunders Legacy’ and B. Cool Breeze ‘Emerald’. B. ‘Saunders Legacy’ was in a 9cm pot with nothing showing. It is now a spreading plant with filigree leaves and is a foot across, with typical B. sutherlandii orange flowers. Hopefully when it dies down it will leave a pile of bulbils from which I can grow lots more next year.
The Cool Breeze series, like the Garden Angel series, are a product of Terra Nova Nurseries in the USA. The range of Begonias on their website is extensive and deeply impressive, but how many have made it to this side of the Atlantic I have no idea.

I must just briefly mention a couple of varieties that I have growing in pots in the glasshouse. B. carolineifolia was a garden centre purchase which has bright green, palmately compound leaves arising from an improbably thick stem. It produced flower spikes from the fat stems in the winter, which took an age to open out to small white flowers. Last year’s leaves gradually yellowed in the winter as new leaves appeared.
B. ‘Sophie Cecile’, which I bought as a plug in 2021, is now in a 7.5L pot and 75cm tall. It is extremely handsome, with dark leaves splashed with pink tinged, silvery markings. To date it has shown no sign of flowering but I’d be surprised if it didn’t at some point this year.

And then, in my propagator, is a leaf of B. massoniana ‘Jungle’, just starting to show signs of new plantlets developing, following on from ‘Boomer’, of which I have several plants from a similar leaf a year or two back. In fact one plant is now in the garden. It could well feature in the next thrilling installment!