WINTER TREATMENT OF BEGONIAS.

Otago Witness, Issue 1905, 25 May 1888, Page 6

WINTER TREATMENT OF BEGONIAS.

Begonias that have been grown in pots roquire merely to have the pots turned on their sides in any dry place as soon as the foliage dies down. Some care and judgment are necessary before the pots are put on their sides. It is bad to lay them down when the soil is wet, and it is equally bad to dry the soil too quickly. Water must be withheld gradually, aud : all the stalks and foliage *eittoved as they decay. Two opposite and equally fatal evils beset begonias during the winter ; they are sometimes attacked by a d£cay which reduces the tubers to a pulp, and, of course, renders them utterly useless. Damp and a too luxurious growth during the blooming season will occasion this decay ; but ib sometimes makes its appearance even when the ordinary causes which give rise to it have been guarded against. Too much heat is equally injurious ; the tubers then become dry and shrivelled, and refuse to start in spring. An authority on their cultivation says : — " We do not water our begonias at all during winter ; bat if the place in which they are stored is at all too hot, they will want water once or twice daring the winter; they should never be allowed to get so dry as to shrivel in the least. "Experience has taught us that begonias dislike pots, and do far better when they have never been grown in them. All our finest and best tubers are started ou an almost cold frame in September, from which they are lifted in good large balls in December, and placed in the beds. an which they are to bloom ; they remain there till cut down by frost, when they are brought in ?ncl stored in turf mould on the shelves of a

warm, airy shed."! So treated, the failures during the winter are about 1 per cent., while the death rate in the pots is much higher. ' We only know of about six begonias that do better inside than out— Snowflake, Garill Legros, Blanche JeanPierre, Antoinette Guerin, Monsieur de 'Witt, andMadamedeDumast, we have found better in the house than when planted out. As a general rule all do incomparably better out than in ; the growth is more vigorous, the flowers finer, and the tubers hardier."