The joy of hanging baskets - Begonia Apricot Illumination

A reassessment is in order, not so much of the garden, as the gardener. If you'd asked...ooh, a year ago, "Are you a person who welcomes hanging baskets?" you'd have seen a flinch of pain and a headshake. How twee! How surburban! How very...not Proper Gardening! 

Now I have an inkling of Sean Connery's probable sense of abashment when he ended up in Never Say Never Again, because, well, You Never Know.

Begonia Apricot Illumination - how to please your father-in-law.

Last year I received two two Easy Fill Hanging Baskets, Incredicompost, and 30 Garden Ready Begonia Apricot Illumination, courtesy of Van Meuwen. Not only would this be my first experience of hanging baskets, but it was only my second run-in with begonias - plants which really didn't perform well for me a few years ago. Still, nothing loath, I planted them up when the begonias arrived in May.  Nice healthy plants, and the hanging baskets were very easy to deal with. You just fill them up to the level of the lower holes, feed the rootball in from the outside, clip in the gate that half fills the hole, so preventing the plant from falling out, and then fill up again to the next level to do it all over again.

I could have left them to sit on the ground. They have a nice flat bottom and, with no hooks fixed anywhere, I was tempted, but they left on a journey for my father-in-law's where the frame of a pergola provided a nice easy position. It also meant that someone else would have to remember to water them. 

Begonia Apricot Illumination in the rain.

And boy, did they grow. Husband's pa is not known for effusiveness, but I was heaped with praise for the gorgeous display (did I say I didn't do the watering?). And it was astonishing value for money. In full bloom from July, the baskets continued in profusion until late autumn. Leaving the baskets on the ground would have been a shame, as they grew into a huge ball of sunset-intense colour. They were an absolute magnet for the eye, and I spent ages just drinking them in.

Quite obviously I had to do it again this year and the great thing, I discovered, about hanging baskets is that you can just take them down and leave the compost to dry out and the plants to die down. In fact, I only unearthed the tubers this spring, when it was time to plant up the baskets all over again. Out of the original thirty, three weren't up to replanting.

Begonia Apricot Illumination from Van Meuwen, second time around, in the same Easy Fill hanging basket

How's the display this year? Every bit as good! I'm buried even deeper in my father-in-law's good books. At least, for the basket dedicated to begonias. A complete mental aberration resulted in my mistaking pinks for petunias. Now that basket's a peculiar-looking affair - plants all straining upwards as Nature intended, while the pinks themselves disappear into the background. At least they smell nice. 

Pinks grow upwards. What on earth made me think they were petunira?

Meanwhile, the begonias that were ousted from the second basket are in my garden (you thought I'd want to miss out again?), in pots. However, either it's me (more than possible) or they just prefer hanging baskets. They've grown, but have hardly bushed out to the same extent, so I'm still not getting the display to which I think I'm entitled.  In fact, it reminds me of why I didn't bother with begonias again the first time.

The plan is already clear. I'll make sure I get them out of the pots in good time, dry them off, and put them all ready to take their rightful place in the other hanging basket next year. 

Do I like hanging baskets? Oh, come one! Who doesn't?

NB Although Apricot Illumination doesn't appear on the Van Meuwen website this year, Apricot Shades looks like exactly the same plant.

 

Comments

[VP]

I'm still not sold on that kind of begonia, but I LOVE the trailing boliviensis ones. I've just stuffed one of them in my sole hanging basket - quite a departure for me as I usually have scented petunias in there. I think an entire hanging basket achieved for just over three pounds from my local garden centre is an absolute bargain :)

Don't get me started on the habit of changing commercial names, or the same thing being called different names by different companies! Harrumph.

[John Kingdon]

I've seen these listed as "Begonia Illumination Apricot Shades" so I guess they are the same plant. I love the Easy-fill baskets and also the matching wall planters, with which I've surrounded the house!

You may, as I, have noticed that when filling a basket, those on the sides are more bushy than those planted on the top. Thompson and Morgan, essentially the same company as Van Meuwen, list a more upright growing variety as plug plants. I'm going to try those next year to see if they bush better.

I start tubers into growth at the end of March, pressed into the surface (not buried) of some trays of dry-ish compost in the airing cupboard. I check daily and transfer any with shoots to 7 cm square pots (rootballs fit the easy-fill holes better than round ones) somewhere light but warm. Then they go into baskets once the frost risk has gone.