SEMPERFLORENS BEGONIAS
Fondly known as “wax begonias,” and often called “America’s favorite house plant.” These are bustling, buxom, freely branching plants with watery stems and crisp, nearly round leaves gleaming with a high polish. They cover themselves with continual bursts of white, pink, or red flowers. The furiously flowering singles are the oldest, best-known, and toughest, often used for edging semishady garden beds. The semidoubles (crested or thimble type) have a raspberry-shaped center extending out from a circle of petals. The doubles (rosebud or camellia-flowered) are fluttery, full-petaled spheres. Foliage may be clean green, bronzy, or mahogany.
‘Adeline’ (‘Improved Darling’)—Free-blooming soft, single pink; green leaves.
‘Andy’—Deeper, more luminous pink flowers; green leaves.
‘Little Gem’—Double, rosy-pink flowers; very dark red leaves; small, slow-growing.
‘Pied Piper’—Baby pink, semidouble flowers, the crest sometimes touched with gold; bronzy leaves.
‘Snowdrop’—Smallest I’ve ever seen, has never topped three inches for me, just grows bushier and bushier. Double white flowers like minute snowballs; dark-red foliage.
tausendschoen (‘Thousand Beauties’)—A group of green-leaved, single-flowering dwarfs available in red, pink, or white. Easily grown from seed.
‘Winkie’—Fully double, old rose flowers; masses of dark leaves.
CARE. Partial sun, moderate warmth, average soil kept on the dry side.
PROPAGATION. Stem cuttings (best taken with a branch, so the plants will be self-branching), seeds (singles), division of root and crown.