Begonia Begus

Begonia thelmae

Homeland - Brazil.

Perennial herb succulent plant with flowing shoots up to 40 cm long. The stems are thickly pubescent with reddish hairs. Leaves are alternately slightly fleshy oval-elongated with a pointed apex, rarely serrate, shiny, 7-8 cm long, 2-3 cm wide. The upper side is dark green with lighter veins, the lower side with a purple hue.

Flowers are small white.

Begonia is one of the popular indoor plants. There are hundreds of varieties obtained as a result of interspecies and intraspecific crossings, including ampel, or, as it is customary to call abroad, trailing:

• Art Nodes - the leaves are broadly vague, with pale branching veins, the upper side slightly convex, abundantly pubescentreddish hairs, lower - purple, white flowers;

• Cascade - very small leaves, very densely located on the stem and tile overlapping each other, young bronze-pink, flowers - tender pink;

• Cathedral - leaves rounded, strongly wavy shiny, dark green with lemon-green spots on the upper side and purple with bright green spots on the bottom;

• Charm - a cultivar of begonia evergreen, leaves are dark green with cream or white spots, ciliated along the edge, wavy, pink flowers;

Concord - leaves are of exquisite shape: cut into 5 slightly twisted pointed at the top of the lobes, purple-violet from above and reddish from below, beautifully set off snow-white flowers;

Fragant Beauty - the leaves are large enough, crooked with an obviously sharpened drawn apex, dark green, the flowers are bright pink;

Hocking Bugaboo is a very unusual variety, the stem is flexible, arcuate drooping, with dissected green leaves with cream-white crab, white flowers;

Illumination - a series of varieties with elongated-lanceolate, koser-shaped, edentate leaves along the edge and magnificent wilting double flowers of white, yellow, cream, various shades of pink.

Inferno - forms a lush shrub up to 30 cm in diameter, green leaves create a beautiful background for bright red flowers;

Martins Mystery - leaves are roundish, bare dense, the upper side is greenish pink, the lower one is purple, the flowers are bright pink, blooms almost all year round;

Ogososo - leaves in base broadly ovate on apex triangular, dense, glossy slightly convex - "quilted", gray-green with thin lilac rim, white-pink flowers;

Panasoffkee - small oval leaves, slightly thickened with shiny brownish-green, tinted purple veins, upper side and reddish lower, flowers white;

Salmon Cascade - a powerful plant, abundantly branching, the mass of heart-shaped green leaves creates a perfect background for the wave of salmon-pink flowers;

Sean York is a fantastically beautiful variety, with a cascade-type stalk, pubescent thyroid-colored light green leaves and small pink flowers;

Splotches - leaves are olive-green, shiny, the underside is purple, flowers are white-pink;

Sunshower - leaves are small bronze green, flowers are bright yellow, decorated with a red eye, flowers in summer and in winter;

Tanjier - small green leaves with a wavy edge create a background for a variety of coral-red flowers collected in umbellate inflorescences;

Whitelacoochea - elongate-lanceolate, rounded at the tip, green with brownish-yellow veins, leaves densely located on cascade-like stems, white flowers, usually blooming in winter.

Courtship. Begonias are light-loving plants, especially variegated forms and varieties. For a group of ample begonias, bright scattered light is needed with a small amount of direct sunlight in the morning and in the evening. The leaves become lighter with an excess of light, they lengthen and lose their variegation when it is deficient. The temperature in the summer is 22-24 ° C, in winter - 12-14, for the descendants of the subtropics and at least 18 ° C for tropical species. Watering in summer is abundant, but not excessive, before watering the surface of the substrate when touching should be dry. In winter, watering is reduced. Spraying is recommended for species with unsweetened leaves. Humidity is maintained at 50-60%.

As a substrate, a mixture of foliage, peat, humus, mild earth and sand is used in a ratio of 1: 1: 1: 0.5: 1, or leaf, humus, peat and turf ground in a ratio of 2: 1: 1: 0,25, the pH level is 5-6.5.Feeded once in two weeks, to stimulate the formation of leaf mass, fertilizers containing N, P and K in the ratio of 20: 20: 20 are used, for flowering - 15: 20: 15. Once a month, they are fed with organic fertilizers. When transplanting choose clay pots, whose diameter is 2-3 cm larger than the previous one. To form an effective form, it is recommended to prick the young shoots. After flowering, faded inflorescences are removed.

Propagation of begonias by stem and leaf cuttings. Reproduction by whole leaves or their pieces is used for large-leaved species and varieties. The sheet is cut into triangular pieces, so that on each of them there is a branching of veins, and planted in sand to a depth of 1.5-2 cm, the temperature is maintained at 20 ° C, the roots are formed within 2-3 weeks, the cuttings are taken after flowering, butnot later than early autumn. Stem cuttings with two internodes are rooted in a mixture of leaf land, peat and sand in a ratio of 1: 1: 2.To prevent excessive evaporation, the lower pair of leaves are either removed, or shortened by half.