Growing ampelous begonias from seeds

Ampelous begonia is a very beautiful decorative flower that has long been loved by many plant breeders. It is easy to care for, and you can grow it from seeds.

Ampelous begonia is a flower that is suitable for growing both in the room and in the garden. His homeland is considered to be Africa, Asia and Indonesia. More than 1,000 species of begonias can be found in the wild today, and over 130 species of begonias have been selected for breeding under artificial conditions. This is a beautiful perennial plant, the stems of which grow upwards, but at the same time, under their own weight, they fall from the flowerpots.

Indoor flowering, with proper care, lasts from June to January, outdoors - until frost. At subzero temperatures, begonia disappears, therefore, with the onset of autumn cold weather, the plant is transplanted and kept indoors until the onset of heat.

Flowers of the “Chanson” and “Gavrish Alkor F1” varieties are especially popular. They have large bright velvety flowers of a wide variety of colors. Flowers are either monochromatic or bicolor. Begonia leaves are also very beautiful and decorative: they are carved in shape and color from green to purple. At home, these varieties of ampelous begonias can be easily grown from seeds, the main thing is to follow the instructions exactly.

It will not be difficult to grow an ampelous begonia of the "Chanson" and "Gavrish Alkor F1" varieties from seeds. Today the seeds are sold in two varieties.

• Regular seeds. They are inexpensive, sold in almost any specialized store and are very small in size. They are planted only in a wide container with soil. Such material is not suitable for planting in tablets or cups per piece.
• Granular or glazed seeds. They are quite large in size, they are sown only one piece per hole. The advantage of such seeds is their size and ease of planting.

Which planting material to give preference to, everyone decides for himself.

The soil can be purchased in specialized stores in a ready-to-use form, or you can prepare it yourself. To do this, mix in the proportion 3X3X1X0.5:

• sheet soil;
• black earth soil;
• sand;
• perlite.

The prepared substrate must be disinfected without fail. It can be produced in several ways:

• freezing;
• high temperature steam treatment;
• watering the soil with boiling water;
• abundant wetting of the substrate with a solution of potassium permanganate of medium concentration.

Sowing can be carried out not only in special soil, but also in coconut or peat tablets. Using ready-made tablets, the need for disinfection does not disappear, but it is only allowed to freeze them. Additional soil preparation is not needed for them.

Growing ampelous begonias in the ground is best done in plastic containers with a pallet.

After all the preparatory activities have been completed, you can proceed directly to planting the material.

The procedure is performed step by step:

• before using the tablet, pour abundantly with warm filtered water;
• the soaked tablets are placed on a pallet or in a special box with sections;
• put 1, maximum 2 seeds on the surface of each tablet and lightly press them with your finger;
• using a spray bottle, the planting is sprayed with water at room temperature;
• cover with foil on top and leave alone.

Further watering is carried out only through the pallet: the required amount of liquid is poured neatly into them.

This sowing takes longer.

• First, a 5 cm drainage layer is poured onto the bottom of the container, ordinary pebbles will do.
• The container is filled with disinfected soil and lightly spilled with warm water.
• The seeds are carefully laid out on the surface of the substrate. Previously, you can make small grooves up to 0.5 cm deep at a distance of 3-5 cm from each other. It is best to spread the seeds with tweezers.

Immediately after sowing, the seeds are not watered: they are covered with foil and harvested before sprouting. Watering can cause the seeds to sink too deep into the substrate and eventually simply do not germinate. A container with sown begonia seeds is placed in a room with a temperature of + 23 ° and left there until shoots appear. If necessary, watering is carried out. The first shoots will appear no earlier than a week and a half and no later than a month later.

When caring for seedlings, certain conditions must be observed.

• When the first shoots appear, care must be taken to avoid direct sunlight.

• Watering should be regular, but only the bottom: water is poured into trays. Overhead watering is not recommended due to the high likelihood of injury to delicate shoots.

• Plants should receive normal lighting for at least 12 hours. Therefore, if the daylight hours are still not long enough, it is necessary to provide the seedlings with additional artificial lighting.

• It is imperative to harden young shoots. To do this, the film is lifted from one edge every day and left for 5-15 minutes, daily increasing the time of fresh air access to the crops.

This procedure is needed only if the seeds were sown in a standard container, and the simplest seeds were used. If the begonia was planted in the form of granular material, then after the appearance of 3 true leaves on each plant, it is placed together with a tablet in a pot or flowerpot and covered with a prepared substrate. After that, each shoot is carefully watered with a small amount of warm water.

If standard seeds were sown, then picking should be done about 50 days after sowing. You can use small containers 10 cm high to plant one plant at a time, or wide pots for several plants at once.

• Drainage is placed at the bottom of the container.
• The same substrate is poured on top that was used for sowing the seeds.
• The soil is lightly watered with water and small depressions are made in it.
• Seedlings are also shed. Then, carefully using a garden spatula, take out 1-3 plants and place them in a new container.
• Sprinkle with soil on top and tamp it slightly.

15 days after the pick, nitrogen fertilization should be carried out. And 22 days after this procedure, the plants are ready for transplantation to a permanent place. If the seedlings were sown in wide pots, then young begonias can be left in them.

In order for a plant to please for a long time with its beautiful appearance and bright colors, it is necessary to take proper care of it and properly. It needs to be fed, watered regularly and removed old dried leaves.

You can get acquainted with the features of growing begonias from seeds in the following video.