Cascading begonia

Juliaevans0439

Please can anyone advice i planted five cascading  begonia into my lage hanging basket and they began to snap off as they were so heavy yet beautiful. Whats best way to support them please

K67

No idea really but maybe 5 is too many in one basket so they were crowded and couldn't grow strong stems?  Also isn't it a bit early for begonias?

clarke.brunt

Mine snap off as well (so that's a great help!). It's only some of the stems which snap off (where they join the tuber), and only after they've got big and heavy, so I just put up with it. I've sometimes rooted the broken stems (after cutting the flowers off) - with luck there's time for them to form a small tuber ready for the next season. Leaf cuttings work too.

I guess that having the Begonia tubers deeper in the soil would support the stems, but not much scope for that in hanging baskets.

For years now, I've settled on a single Begonia in each of my 6 baskets. They happen to be Begonia 'Panorama Scarlet' - reckon I bought them (don't know how many) about 15 years ago. It's not really 'cascading' - more 'upright', but to me seems a 'winner' among plants - vigorous, dark red foliage, vivid flowers. I guess there are other colours in the Panorama series. The tubers get so large that I can hardly fit them in the baskets (and still have some soil) so every few years, I cut the tubers into pieces as they are coming into growth - I guess won't be too long now - they're sitting (without soil) in seed-trays in the greenhouse at the moment.

I also have Begonia 'Tenella Pink' and 'Tenella Rose' (again there will be other colours). These are more trailing, but I just don't like them as much - they end up in pots.