Those of us who like to start our own plants from seed know you have to get an early start, sometimes a real early start. As a matter of fact, I planted 500 Tuberous Begonia seeds yesterday. I will plant another 500 seeds next week. Spliting up my seeding times helps increase the chances of sucess. If something goes wrong during a critcal time, the second crop will be there to take up the slack.
Begonia seeds are very small, almost as small as petunia seeds, (1/4 to 1/2 the size of a grain of sugar) so they require some special attention.
You have to place the seeds on top of a sterilized planting media such as Jiffy mix and not let them get covered by the soil.
It helps to sprinkle some sand around the seeds after planting to protect them from the deluge of water that happens when you water them. To the begonia seeds, those grains of sand must look like big boulders they can hide behind when watering time starts. Don’t put on too much sand though, you don’t want to bury them.
To water I use a fogging nozzel which puts out a very gentle fog of water, again so the seeds don’t get soil washed over them. At home, you can use a spray bottle, like what you would use to spray on window cleaner, set it on gentle spray.
I also use a clear plastic dome to cover the seed starting flat to help even out the soil moisture, however, a clear sheet of plastic works just as well. I used a sheet of plastic for years before I obtained the plastic dome. Just remember what I said about using sterile starting soil, because mold and bacteria flourish under those conditions too and that’s not good for baby plants.
Now, the hard part of germinating begonia seeds is that you absolutly must keep the soil and seeds at about 74 to 78 degrees. Any more or less will drastically reduce the number of seeds that will sprout. I like to use a heating mat, but any bright, warm place with constant temperature in this range will do.
In about 10 days or so we will begin to see the tiny seedlings emerge. At this stage you can still wash them away so be careful when watering. Keep them moist, but not too moist. Keep in mind those tiny little seedling don’t suck up much water.
Watch out, don’t let them get too dry either! If they get dry they will think its time to form root tubers instead of leaves and will die trying!
There is still time to order some of these early seeds from your favorite seed supplier. I get my begonia seeds from Stoke’s Seeds. This time of year most seed companies are not very busy and can get them shipped out to you right away.
Don’t count on the harware store or gardening department at the big home supply stores to carry begonia seeds, there is not much of a demand for them by the general public.
Does all this sound like a lot of fussing around just to get a few begonias? Well, it is! If you don’t want to grow your own begonias from seed but still would like to have some for your home, just wait until spring and buy the fully grown plants from the garden center. You can remember with a smile that back in December someone, in a greenhouse somewhere, had to fuss with all those seeds so you didn’t have to.
Doing a lot of fussing but no fighting,
Bob