Wax Begonia or Fibrous Begonia

(Begoniaceae - Begonia Family)

Large View

• Form
  • small to medium-sized herbaceous annual
  • maturing at 6" to 15" tall and 6" to 15" wide, forming tight and dense individual mounds
  • upright mounding growth habit

• Culture
  • partial sun to full shade (tolerates full sun if mulched and irrigated)
  • prefers a moist, well-drained soil of good fertility in partial sun, but is heat and drought tolerant except under the most stressful of conditions
  • propagated primarily by seeds, but also by rooted stem cuttings, as seed germination and plantlet growth is slow
  • Begonia Family, with few disease or pest problems, except for occasional Botrytis blight to the foliage and stems, when conditions are too wet or too humid to allow for appropriate drying out
  • abundantly available in flats, hanging baskets, or seed packets

• Foliage
  • very glossy, thick, succulent, and ovate leaf blades may be either glabrous or pubescent, having short petioles
  • green, chocolate, bronze, burgandy, or dark red foliage types exist, complementing the different floral colors and making for a wide array of ornamental combinations; the non-green foliage types attain best leaf color in partial sun to full sun

• Flowers
  • monoecious, with primarily staminate but also pistillate flowers, at the termini of apical pedicels or in the leaf axils
  • corolla is single or double flowering, primarily with solid white, shell pink, pink, or red petals (rarely yellow), and also bicolors, surrounding a yellow center of stamens or pistils
  • flowering profusely and continuously from June through frost

• Fruits
  • ornamentally insignificant

• Twigs
  • not applicable

• Trunk
  • not applicable

• ID Summary
  • glossy ovate leaves occur in a wide range of shades of bright green, bronze, chocolate, or burgandy-red, while the small but noticeable flowers are white, pink, or red, with yellow centers
  • growth habit of individual plants is very tight and mounding, and appears as many humpy waves in a sea of mass planting

• Function
  • edgings, entranceways, foundations, mass plantings, planters, pots, hanging baskets, or window boxes

• Texture
  • medium texture
  • thick density

• Assets
  • adaptable from full sun to full shade
  • waxy and succulent leaves, with an array of foliage colors from green to bronze to dark red
  • continuous flowering from Summer until after the initial frost
  • many different combinations of foliage and flower colors can occur
  • tight mounding growth habit
  • heat tolerant

• Liabilities
  • foliage and stems rarely contract Botrytis blight, and usually only under constant irrigation or heavy continuous rainfall conditions

• Habitat
  • native to Brazil
  • annual that is killed with several freezes, but not with initial light frosts

• Alternates
  • annuals that perform well in shady sites (Caladium, Coleus, Impatiens, etc.)
  • annuals with very attractive foliage (Amaranthus, Caladium, Canna, Catharanthus, Coleus, etc.)

• Variants
  • many cultivars exist, bred for foliage color, floral color, and/or compactness

• Translation
  • Begoniais named after Michael Begon of 17th century French Canada.
  • x semperflorens-cultorum translates as "always flowering-cultivated", referring to an asset and the popularity of the hybrid, respectively.

• Purpose
  • Wax Begonia is often a mass focal point or edging annual, with its non-green foliage color variants best displayed in full sun to partial sun, but with all forms adaptable to sunny or shady conditions.

• Summary
  • Begonia x semperflorens-cultorum is a popular annual with waxy, green- to bronze- to red-colored foliage and small ornamental flowers of continuous bloom, especially good for edgings, beds, or containers.