Hi, my name is Byron Martin, here at Logee's Greenhouses. And today, we're
going to be talking about Begonias. In particular, the Rhizomatous group of
begonias. And in that group, there are many hybrids that were made that we've
been working with over these many years. In particular, we've been working on
breeding orange and yellows and chartreuse colors into our hybrids. Now
the rhizomatous begonias are probably some of the best for indoor growing. They
don't go into a dormancy like the Rex begonias in the wintertime; they handle
low light quite well, and they also handle neglectful watering.
Plus, there's an advantage of having them flower in the wintertime for us. So, all
rhizomatous will bloom if they're given an environment where the light level is
decreasing, the day length is decreasing. It stimulates flowers; by February the
plants are in full bloom, and they create these tall sprays with usually pink or
white flowers on them; quite beautiful, and quite easy to get to bloom. In terms
of our work here, we're trying to get color forms that are vibrant; that have
these orange or chartreuse coloring to them that really stand out. And when we
go into a bench of begonias that are being grown, the ones that are really
brilliant, like a fall color, are the ones that we're looking for, and then the
patterning that comes out from that. So, one of the first hybrids that we worked
with was 'Autumn Ember,' and you can see the very brilliant leaves of orange that
come out of this plant. Interestingly, most of these have quite a bit of
variance in terms of the time of year; so, these younger plants are being grown
under lower light- their color comes out very, very intensely. Once they've gone
through a summer time, the color will mute some, as is the case right here.
You can see these have been grown sometime with earlier light of summer,
and we get some little more green in them, and the colors actually deepen. One
of the other hybrids that we did was one was named after Martha Stewart. You can
see there's a lot of yellow in there, along with the orange and the deeper
tones of bronze. And this one is a very compact grower- I mean it makes a nice
round form to it; flowers with pink flowers in wintertime, and is really an
excellent plant for containers. This is a variety that we developed just recently
called 'Tiger Paw.' You can see it's very contained; nice small, round growth to it.
Again, it has chartreuse leaves, rather than the deep green leaves, and the brown
markings on the edge. And this year we've come out with a one of our new hybrids,
this is called 'Amelia's Kaleidoscope.' This is an interesting hybrid in that it
has quite a bit of variability in its color form. This is a young plant that's
coming from propagation, and you can see it's very rich in its patterns and
webbing. And then the leaves actually start turning to this kind of orangey
color, deep orange color. And, we have a larger plant over here- this is a mature
specimen- where it's gone through the summertime. You can see the green that
formed on some of the older leaves. The newer leaves here are really showing
some of that brilliant, brilliant orange color. Also we have a hybrid here which
we named 'Solar Flare,' and, as you can see, this is a -this is even bigger than
'Amelia's Kaleidoscope' in its growth. It was one that held its red color for the
longest period of time, and so we had less of what we would call the browning
of summer in it, which many of the hybrids have. So, it holds its red color
over a longer period of time. And finally, we have another hybrid, here, which is
beginning to show itself in its form. There's actually quite a bit of netting
coming out of this; we've had some solid bronze or chocolate colored leaves with
this very highlighted chartreuse veining to it. So there's a little bit of
information on how we hybridize and some of the hybrids that we've made in recent
years here at Logee's. We're continuing to work on it, setting seeds as the season
comes by, and growing our young seedlings on; see if we can make even new and more
exciting hybrids. Thank you for watching, and if you'd like more information, visit us at logees.com.