Regular readers will know that most plants I label as irritating is because I am irritated with myself. This is a prime example of this genre. Dear Reader I present to you the Begonia koelzii.
What's wrong with this I hear you say, it looks a fine healthy plant. Yes it was back in September 2019 when I bought it from my good friends at Swines Meadow Farm Nursery. I looked after it carefully, I made sure it got through the winter ok. It was a happy plant.
and then a few weeks ago I had to empty the conservatory as I needed to replace the floor. I put all the inside plants outside as the weather was so good I was fairly sure they would all be ok for a week or so whilst I sorted out the floor. I was right, the plants have had a wild time outside and are looking good.
apart from this one.
I made a mistake, a serious mistake. I did not check the label before popping it into the greenhouse to make sure it would be ok. I could not have done anything more disasterous. It melted in front of my eyes. Within a couple of hours it was wilting and looking burned. I knew I had done something terrible especially as this begonia is meant to be hardy. I think what makes it worse is that I had no reason to put it in the greenhouse as I had not done this with the other plants. I really do not know what I was thinking. I took it outside as fast as I could in the hope it would recover.
and then I checked up again on what conditions it prefers. I moved it swiftly into the Courtyard Garden, the nursery area for a lot of my plants which is also delightfully shady. It is a really difficult area for most plants, but for this begonia it sounded just what it needed. Within days it was rewarding me by wagging some new foliage at me. I am not sure if this was a 'thank you' or a 'I surrender whatever I did wrong I promise not to do again' wagging.
A few more days and look, the plant is on the road to recovery.
Phew! It just goes to show what a good plant it is as it has forgiven me. I shall be more careful in future.
