Kitchen Garden Forum

I have some beautiful vibrant red ones that are just lovely. I know it is a long shot, but is there any way of keeping these going for next year, drying the tuber(do trailing ones have tubers?), cuttings etc. I have a heated greenhouse and a cool garage for example. thanks!

They will probably have developed small tubers which will be vulnerable to frost so if you can move them in somewhere cool and frost free to dry down naturally. Then there are two options either leave them in their ball of dry soil in a cool frost free place (can be dark if necessary) or tease away the soil and store in some dry matter like vermiculite, laid out in a seed tray and covered with it would be good. Cover them with newspaper and keep the rodents off! On no account put them in a plastic bag.

Start them off again next spring by potting and watering, make sure you get them the right way up! Usually a hollow on the top. Sit them in the pot so that the compost comes about halfway up the side of the tuber.

MW

thanks MW, that's brilliant!

There will be a tuber. It may be a very small one, though, if your plants were grown from seed this year. About the size of a walnut is as large as I've seen seed-grown bedding Begonia tuber. I tried saving a few tubers from bedding Begonias once and they shrivelled to nothing. I don't think their small size was the factor, I'm certain it was because the tubers were not allowed to go dormant properly. I've also grown potted tuberous Begonias, and in their case the plant is encouraged to dry off gradually at the end of the season — the leaves start to yellow to indicate that the plant has started to go dormant. At this stage, watering is eased off until eventually the whole plant turns brown and then neatly parts from the tuber. When grown as bedding, they do not go through this process, and as a result I don't suppose the tuber has gone through the proper process of dormancy.
If you want to give it a try, a good place to store tubers is in a tin for mouse-proofing.

well, I finally got round to digging them out yesterday (a bit late, I know, but i hasn't been terribly cold) and they do have tubers, massive ones, the size of apples! brilliant. I am drying them off now, ready to replant when it get's a bit warmer.

the begonias are now growing strongly. should I pinch out the tips to encourage bushiness (they are trailing type) or will they do that on their own?