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No sign of begonia or dahlia...
Hi. Planted trailing begonia bulbs around 6 weeks ago in hanging baskets. Have kept moist, but no sign. Can I carefully dig in with hands to check if they are growing? Also dahlia tubers planted at same time... No show...
Should I just go get new bulbs and tubers or is it too late now?
Thanks...
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Both those should have been started off in trays and kept in the warm, I haven't planted mine out yet, so would assume yours have died.
in my opinion it's too late to start now, but you could buy ready grown bedding plants for this year, and try next year with your own tubers and corms. But both must be kept in the warm until biggish plants then planted out mid to end of May.
Yup frost kills them pretty quick, mine are all up and flowering but I only just put them outside.
I'd go for a gentle dig in the baskets to see if anything is happening.
If they've been frosted, as said above, they're probably dead.
If the tubers feel squishy, they've had it.
But worth having a look.
After 6 weeks - if all is well - you should be seeing little shoots appearing from the top of the begonia tuber (the concave end), the roots don't get going for a while longer.
Same with the dahlia - you should see shoots appearing from near where the tuber joins the stem.
Both come from warm climates, so to get the best of any plant, you need to try and replicate the conditions where it grows naturally.
Here in Essex I left my dahlias in over winter, but as we've had barely any frost at all here, the dahlia shoots are 2-3" out of the ground now. Keeping the slugs at bay is now the challenge!
Last edited: 15 May 2016 14:04:43
Billericay - Essex
Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit.
Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.
Ok, begonia bulbs have little white shoots coming from it. The Dahlia tubers have tiny roots appearing. But.... Any old excuse, went out today and bought some glowing ember begonia plants and orange pom jumbo plug dahlia's!
C3k Probably sounds daft but are you sure you planted the begonias the right way up? My begonia shoots are all bronzy pink. Little white shoots sounds like little white roots.
some of my dahlias are over 12" tall and some are just starting to shoot. Mine don't get potted up until I'm sure they're alive and shooting.
Ha ha Verdun. I was just checking but it is definitely concave side up for begonia corms.