How To Start Begonias From Seed 🌺 || Starting Begonia Seeds

I love large, double begonias! I always want to add them to my garden each spring, but the price is pretty high since they are such a unique bloom. Follow along with me starting begonia seeds and how to start begonias from seed.

Amazon Storefront – https://www.amazon.com/shop/shesamadgardener

#begonias #startingbegoniaseeds #growingbegonias
#shesamadgardener #zone8 #zone8a #texasgarden #texasgardening #cutflowergarden #cutflowerfarm

Music Credit: Epidemic Sounds

Where to find She’s A Mad Gardener:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/shes_a_mad_gardener/?hl=en
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/shesamadgardener
Tik Tok: @shesamadgardener
Planting Zone 8a Wylie, Texas

She’s a Mad Gardener is a YouTube channel exploring projects in the home including but not limited to home gardening, DIY decorating, holiday decor, easy recipes, and so much more.

“As always, She’s A Mad Gardener and a decorator and anything she wants to be.”

Hey y’all this is Amanda and welcome back to my Texas donate a garden and today we are preparing for spring 2024 by starting a bunch of Bonas from Seed okay so Bonas are a LoveHate relationship for me not a fan of wax Bonas I do love tubous Bonas which tend to be double and really frilly and just ornate and wow factor blooms um I don’t love just the basic wax Bonas that you can get um to put in

Your garden although I understand their appeal as they are very they do well really well in my area but I’ve been wanting to grow a lot of the tuous ones for quite a while and they tend to be quite pricey in the nurseries and so I started researching about how and if I

Could grow them from seed and you absolutely can grow Bonas from seed both wax and tubous uh Bonas and then you can also grow them through propagation which is actually very very popular but I don’t have any Bonas right now to propagate so we’re going to start with

Seed now Bonas are known for being a little bit more difficult um a little bit more dramatic when you’re growing them from seed they take quite a while to germinate anywhere from 15 to 60 days to germination and since they have such a slow start to their growth that’s why

I’m starting to right now in December with the hopes that come into March into April or maybe even into May depending on how long these take I will have some balloons to plant out in my garden but that works fine since Bonas are very sensitive to frost and cold and so

They’re not something that I want to grow and then try to move out in very early spring or late winter just because they could end up dying back after all that work of growing them so they’re not something I really want to move move out

Until I am well past the danger of my last frost probably into at least the second week of April now my last frost typically is mid-march but we do tend to have some cold spells throughout that next month and so yeah I think just kind of holding on to them and keeping them

Inside for that time until they are definitely past the risk of cold weather before moving them outside now you’re probably wondering how am I planning on using my Bonas I am mainly looking at utilizing them in containers for my front porch and hanging baskets but going is definitely prefer more shade at

Least part shade and they do struggle in the hot weather of um my particular zone so I think working them in an area like my porch would work out really really well okay so let’s talk about the varieties that I have okay so I have three varieties of Bonas I’m going to be

Starting they were all ordered from swallow tail Garden seats which has been one of my new favorite places to order seeds that’s where I got all my petunia seeds that I’ve all started those are doing really well I’m actually going to be doing a seed update in my next or

Seedling update in my next video okay so the first variety I have is called the illumination mix for tubis Bonas and this is a blend of eight showy bright and chery sheret H sheret sherbet or sherbet colors golden piate white Scarlet salmon pink apricot Shades lemon orange and Rose the flowers are both

Fully double and semi-double and from hanging basket spilled downward with uncommon Grace they are tub Bonas which preferred filtered shade and moist soil um the plants do perform well in even in the heat but they definitely have to have that partial shade to them so I ended up getting 20 pelleted seeds for

$5 and if you have purchased SP onas before you know that’s it’s an excellent price for a tuberous Bonia you can definitely buy like the tubers um online quite frequently and so that’s an option too and I might try that out later on maybe in the earlier um time of the year

Try some of the tubers I think that might be fun but even with 20 pelleted seeds at $5 if one of them goes well that’s still a savings for me because a lot of the more like desirable tubus Bonas that are all the fancy those are usually minimum $20 for a

Plant and definitely upwards depending on how large you choose like a hanging basket or whatever so even if I have one come out that’ll be wonderful okay the next variety I got is an amera hybrid piy lace pink which is also a tuous Bonia um these Pik flowers are light

Colored with darker edges uh it has a clear pink petals with delicate edged in white they are enormous the flowers are anywhere from 4 to 8 in Lacy double blooms appear in late spring summer and fall nicely shaped upright plants grow 4 to 20 in tall and 10 to 12 in wide with

Lush Emerald um green leaves these plant and containers are in partially shaded garden beds so these are going to be better for containers than for hanging baskets the other one the illumination are going to be better for hanging baskets this one grows more upright but I loved this beautiful kind of pink

Salmony color I think it’ll be really fun to grow I also got 20 seeds for $4.99 okay and the last VAR IDE I got is an amera hybrid ruffled Coral salmon and these are once again really large flowers from anywhere from like 5 to 9 in um in diameter double flowers have

Layer upon layer frilly petals in a rich Coral pink shape nicely formed 14 to 20 in tall plants grow about 10 to 12 in wide the Amera hybrid ruffled Coral Salon Bonia brighten partially to fully shaded uh Bon as brighten partially to fully shaded Garden containers and beds

From late spring to Autumn so these are also going to be um mainly for containers less for um hanging baskets and this also is 20 pelleted seeds but this one was $4.49 okay so let’s talk a little bit about Bonia seeds they literally look like dust um they are so

Small um that’s why I was really happy to get the pelleted ones because it’ll be much easier to divide them out they absolutely need light for germination and so they’re definitely just going to be pressed onto the top of the soil we’re not going to cover them at all

Secondly because they take so long to germinate anywhere from 15 to 60 days you definitely want to keep them moist so we’re going to be putting them in a container that has a dome on it to make sure that they stay moist the entire germination process okay let’s get started okay so

We’re going to be utilizing my Amazon seed starting trays these come with a base um they come with a 12 cell tray as well that has holes in the bottom and they come with a lid that has a humidity um adjustment here and basically when I’m starting seeds I like to start with

Dried um soil and I definitely get a lot of comments about how that’s different I know most gardeners start with moist soil I don’t why I prefer it this way um I think it’s cuz it’s a messy thing and I just like this better uh when I’m

Working inside I think that if I was outside I’d be you know much less conscious of this but basically I’m just going to put in the soil and press it down with my fingers and get a nice layer keep adding until no more goes in there and then basically I will add

Water to um the base and put this in and then it will soak up the water and it does great for me so we’re going to go ahead and need six containers so let’s get those filled up now I’m just using my favorite bm7 um potting soil mix you can use a basic

Potting soil I am trying to remove the clumps so there won’t be any hindrance to the seeds um you can also use a seed starting mix I’ve kind of gone away from that unless it’s for a very particular um scene just because I find this process

Easier and um this soil this soil I it’s been out for a while so it’s been allowed to dry out quite a bit but typically the soil is fine enough that it works great to have start seeds in it and I like that it’s less complicated than having to buy more soil uh

Different type of soil we’re going to be starting a lot of seeds over the next 6 to 8 weeks I’m really going to be ahead of on my seed starting this year because I definitely have some varieties that take longer and this is kind of great because

With winter setting in I don’t have a lot of stuff growing in the garden and so it’s nice to have the seeds inside to kind of fuel that passion during the colder months okay so I want to go ahead and fill water in these trays to kind of

Show you how quickly the process goes for these by the time we finish planting all of our seeds all of these con containers will have Wicked up all the water so I fill the trays a little more than halfway with water and then we just go ahead and put

The trays in and allow them to sink down on their own accord but they do wick up the water really quickly okay so the seeds are incredibly tiny and we have 20 palleted seeds per variety and so I have 24 um cells so obviously four of them we won’t use

Use so I’m going to go ahead and start with the illumination mix Bonia and got them they are super super tiny so all I’m going to do is I’m going to try to just take one at a time and put them in the center of each one now these

Are oops I got two in that one well that’s so it’s going to be y’all these i i a lot of other gardeners I’ve seen like heavily seed these this is me being super hopeful that they will all germinate so I’m just putting one for a container and it looks like there’s definitely

More than 20 seeds so I’m going to double up on a few of them I would say there’s oh I was supposed to put them into this goly it takes me a little bit you guys sometimes let me see okay so I forgot and I should have put the extra ones

Over here so I’ve got a pair of tweezers let’s see if I can move some of these over so there were 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 so there are 22 seats and all I’m going to do is put in my

Tags and then I’m going to go ahead and top these making sure that the vent is closed and then these are going to go directly behind me okay this package also had 22 Seats Okay so feeling really good about that now um couple of different things that I saw from um other gardeners who are starting some of them would put the coated seeds the um pelleted seeds in the refrigerator for just the night before um sewing them because they felt

Like the coldness helped break down the coating I’ve never had any issues with the coating breaking down as soon as water hits it it immediately melts right away and so I haven’t really struggled with that so I did not do that on this process okay so we are going to be

Setting up heating pads um heat mats for these they do need to be about 80° in order to germinate my house is typically kept at about 70 to 72 and then as we get into the winter we do drop down to about 67 to 68 eight um and so let’s go

Ahead and set up those heat Mats okay they’re all set up on their heat mat with the domes on and the vents closed okay super happy to have that process done now once again reminder these take a long time for determination I will try to give updates on social media but then I’ll probably do um

Another like seedling update in each month as we’re going along so like in January come back and evaluate all the seats that I started and things like that just to kind of keep you guys updated but the the Bonas have to go ahead and be started so that they are

Ready to go for spring just like the patunas they take quite a while to get going I think I’m also going to do some research in ordering some of the tubers to grow they’re a little bit more pricey but the thing about tubers Bonas is that

Once you get them started you can um basically divide the tubers over time and have multiple plants going for quite a while I would also like to if this goes well I would like to save all of these tubers at the end of fall and beginning of winter um keep them all

Inside and then restart them for the spring which I think would be fabulous especially because the tubers would continue to get bigger and more Lush over the years all right you all I hope you enjoyed today’s video a little bit different for me with the Bonia seeds

Very new to me I’m excited we have a lot more seeds that we’re going to be starting over the next six to eight weeks can’t wait to show you all if you have grown Bonas from seed before drop your comments below let us know if you have any tips comments ments or concerns

Um and let us how know how you got the best results or if you struggled with some of your results all right y all as always make sure you hit that subscribe button and that notification Bell so you know my latest videos are up and be sure

To check me out on Instagram Facebook and Tik Tok as always she’s a mad Gardener or decorator or anything else that she wants to be thanks Y’all