Self-Sufficient Begonias

Memorial Day may be months away, but it’s never too early to start thinking about which flowering plants will go into our shopping carts for patriotic and graveside displays. Geraniums, small floss flowers, petunias… these flowering plants make up some of the prettiest baskets of the season. But if you’re looking for equally pretty flowering plants that retain water and require no deadheading, then set your sights on Begonias.

Begonias are ideal flowering plants to use in displays that cannot be tended all the time. I discovered this in preparing for one Memorial Day, when memories of the previous summer—a time that wore me out, driving back and forth weekly to water graveside displays so that they would not get scorched during high-heat weather—caused me to look for flowering plants that did not need such regular visits for watering, fertilizing, and deadheading. These plants would need to look good without requiring lots of fussing. And they’d need to be bold with their color. Though I considered other options, I landed on Begonias because they looked so healthy and full of flowers at the time I was shopping. And to my surprise, honestly, they stayed healthy and full all summer long.

Begonias can be wildly exotic, more about their foliage than their flowers. These are collectors’ items of sorts. But the Begonias I refer to here are the familiar Wax Begonias, the Picotees with their slightly draping blooms, and the Non-Stop Begonias... flowering plants that pretty much guarantee a great show of lasting color. Angel Wings and other Begonias may be more striking as houseplants and specimen plants in the garden, but the Begonias that might be a little more familiar to most of us—the Begonias just noted—work beautifully in graveside displays, town-center plantings, and other spots that we aim to decorate but hope will not tie up all our time on plant-care. Begonias make very good choices for faraway, hard-to-tend spots such as graveside displays.

The act of decorating memorial sites for our loved ones who have passed is an important one. While it seems to be going out of style for some generations, we’ve got to get it back… got to realize how beautiful it is to acknowledge those we have loved by placing some of the prettiest flowering plants near gravesites. Perhaps this is going out of style because taking care of these displays can be time-consuming in precious spring and summer… times when we might not want to be committed to a regular schedule of driving, watering, fertilizing, and tidying-up. To make things easier, Begonias are good plants to consider. They can be hard to find in early spring, but if you do find them, you will know that, once planted, their water-retention capabilities make them pretty self-sufficient. While you won’t want to let these flowering plants dry out, they’ll do their best to ensure you have no issues in keeping them looking great. And with colors that range from lipstick-bold to tropical to straightforward, you can create a stunning display.

No disrespect to geraniums. Most of us love them. No dust on dusty miller. The suede-like white of its foliage will always be a go-to for Memorial Day. But Begonias can enter into the mix of great flowering plants for Memorial Day and all summer long.