by Jean Willis | May 25, 2021 | Fucshia, Gardening Posts
As part of a regular series, award-winning gardener Jean Willis explains her latest obsession with begonias and shares an honest account of the recent successes and failures in her fabulous container garden. If you’re looking for new begonia plants or fuchsias to try, Jean’s garden is the one to watch!
Plants to be passionate about – Begonia ‘Apricot Shades’
Begonia ‘Apricot Shades’ in Jean’s container garden
Image: Jean Willis
Passion or Obsession? This year I’ve planted over 200 Begonia ‘Apricot Shades’, bought as garden-ready plants. They’ve nearly all gone into hanging baskets, window boxes and tubs. I’ve been asked if I’m obsessed with them and, while I hadn’t really thought about it like that, maybe I am! I’m always thrilled when they’re all flowering, especially if I catch the early sun shining on them.
I recently had a head count and found I had a triple basket (12”, 14” and 16”) joined together by a chain that my husband made for me, 5 single hanging baskets, two half-baskets, a window box and several containers. Two half barrel containers are currently overflowing with apricot flowers.
Plants to be passionate about – Fuchsias
Fuchsias grow happily in containers or the ground
Image: Jean Willis
My other passion is fuchsias. I bought Fuchsia ‘Icing Sugar’ to try out last year, and they’ve been very successful. Another favourite fuchsia is called ‘Wendy’s Beauty’. It has a pretty mauve and white flower, and I grow these for my sister Wendy who lives in California.
This year I bought some Giant Flowered Fuchsias from T&M and they certainly grow like their name! This year, for something different, I’m growing a climbing fuchsia called ‘Swingtime’ in one of T&M’s tower pots; it has now reached the top of the trellis and is flowering profusely.
Having decided to grow petunias again this year after a couple of unsuccessful attempts, I’m now thinking that maybe I should have chosen something else. We’ve had such awful winds and rain that a couple of containers were completely destroyed one night, but I was pleased to discover that the Petunia ‘Night Sky’ and Petunia ‘Amore Queen of Hearts’ stood up to the rain quite well. I think I’ll grow smaller petunias in future, rather than the big ones, although I really like them.
Was it a bird? Was it a squirrel?
A sugar glider in full ‘flight’
Image: Jean Willis
…I actually found out later that it was a Sugar Glider from Australia! On my last visit to a garden centre, I saw something on the trunk of one of the Yucca trees just outside the entrance. As we got closer it looked like a baby squirrel but then it took off and jumped about 10 metres onto a wall covered in ivy. We watched it for a few minutes before it disappeared. On checking Google I found that Sugar Gliders are sometimes bought in this country as a pet but, because they’re very difficult to keep, they’re then let loose. I hope it survived all the rain we’ve had lately. I’m just grateful that Alan was with me; otherwise I might have thought I was seeing things!
I hope you’re all enjoying your gardens this summer. Don`t forget the sunscreen and hat! Until the next time…Happy Gardening.
Jean
Visit our comprehensive hub page for more help and information on growing begonias.
I started gardening 65 years ago on my Dad’s allotment and now live in Bournemouth, where spend a lot of time gardening since retiring. In 2012 I won the Gold Award for Bournemouth in Bloom Container Garden. I am a member of Thompson & Morgan’s customer trial panel.
by Jean Willis | Nov 10, 2017 | Begonias, Customer Trial Panel, Gardening Posts
At the time of writing this blog I am visiting Palm Desert in California for a few days with my Husband Alan and my Sister who lives in Huntington Beach Ca. Today`s temperature has been 104`F, how do they keep their plants alive in such hot weather? Gradually over a few days the temperature dropped to 100`F. Unfortunately brush fires have broken out in many areas, so sad to see people lose their homes, belongings and gardens. We have a lot to be thankful for in the UK even when we get the storms. We shall be visiting the Palm Desert Visitor Centre which has hundreds of different cactus growing – you do have to keep your eyes open as there are notices about rattle snakes hiding near the rocks. You also have to be careful when taking photos as my Sister discovered a couple of years ago when she backed up to a large cactus bush with unpleasant affects.
While we were at our overnight hotel at Heathrow Airport I had a text and photos from my Daughter in Law to say I had won a Gold Award for my hanging baskets and a Gold Award for my container Garden. I was thrilled as we have had a rough few months when my Husband was to and fro from hospital following a serious eye operation. I am sure concentrating on the garden really helped me.
Now down to work:
What a funny month August was – not funny ha ha – In the South we have had several really bad storms and gales with torrential rain and on one occasion hail which shattered a lot of the flowers. The plants did not recover so quickly as they did earlier in the season. As all my plants were in containers on the front decking some of them looked really sorry for themselves so emptied them out and cut some back with the hope that they might recover. A few did but became very untidy. The Apricot Shade Begonias have lasted right through the summer until mid October, also the Non Stop Begonias Citrus variety.
I had four dahlias for trial from Thompson & Morgan which turned out to be very prolific. I grew them in containers and were around 18 inches high although one variety were a little taller. The flowers were stunning with a slight perfume. I was also given two Hibiscus for trial, these have proved very successful growing to around 12 – 14 inches high and continuously flowered. They were still flowing when bought indoors for the winter before the cold nights. They are to be treated as indoors plants until next Spring when they can go back outside.
As I finish the blog we are back in Huntington Beach where we have had some heavy rain and still looks stormy – just to remind me of home.
As we look forward to Christmas have fun everyone and enjoy your gardening…………………..til the next time
Jean.
I started gardening 65 years ago on my Dad’s allotment and now live in Bournemouth, where spend a lot of time gardening since retiring. In 2012 I won the Gold Award for Bournemouth in Bloom Container Garden. I am a member of Thompson & Morgan’s customer trial panel.
by Jean Willis | Apr 18, 2017 | Customer Trial Panel, Flowers, Gardening Posts, Your Stories
One of the new begonias I am going to try this season is Daffadowndilly. I have five corms which are just starting to shoot and will put them into a tray to develop. My first plants – Fairy Blue Fuchsia – have arrived and are growing well in the greenhouse, hopefully it won`t be long before I can plant them out into containers and patiently wait for the beautiful blue fuchsia to appear.
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I started gardening 65 years ago on my Dad’s allotment and now live in Bournemouth, where spend a lot of time gardening since retiring. In 2012 I won the Gold Award for Bournemouth in Bloom Container Garden. I am a member of Thompson & Morgan’s customer trial panel.
by Jean Willis | Mar 3, 2017 | Customer Trial Panel, Flowers, Fruit, Gardening Posts, Perennials
February has come and gone and on the South Coast here we had a week of freezing fog which made the garden look good but certainly not the roads.
I finished ordering my plants from Thompson & Morgan, I don`t know about anyone else but I look at the order and think where will I put them all, but of course they all find a home once they arrive, usually in my case, in hanging baskets, containers and troughs. As I don`t have room for a permanent greenhouse I have a four foot one which has a plastic cover round the frame, and also a hexagonal one which holds quite a few trays. These have worked very well in the past I just have to make sure I watch the weather forecast so I can get the small plants covered with fleece in good time. When I have finished with them they can been cleaned off and put away until needed again and I have extra space on the patio for my containers, and space to put a few more hanging baskets up. I believe some of the plug plants are due during March so that will be an exciting time checking them all out.
Alan and I have moved a lot of stored items from the patio so he could pressure wash it ready for the summer, even during the rain on one day but now it looks really good. I had almost forgotten what the original colour was. Also thinking about moving four containers which have had roses in them for three years and transplanting them along a border by the fence. I hope this will be a good move and that they will be happy in their new home.
There are a couple of bedding plants from last summer that seem to have survived the winter outside, Nemesia and Cerinthe Major. I believe the latter is from seeds that have been dropped in the Autumn and the Nemesia is one that was left in a container. The frost on my Hydrangea Annabelle early one morning looked lovely but soon disappeared once the sun started to rise.
We arrived back from a close friends funeral in Somerset to find that my Incredicompost from Thompson & Morgan had been delivered. The driver had kindly stacked the bags in the porch for me instead of leaving them outside in the bad weather or worse still taking them back to the depot. My eldest Grandson thought I had over ordered until I told him that it was probably only a third of what I would need for the containers and baskets.
This year I am trying the new Ruby Falls Raspberry that can been grown in a hanging basket. It has started well having been kept it in the front porch, as it arrived during the freezing weather, where it gets plenty of light and covered each night. A couple of warm days this last week has seen some of the daffodils flower but others seem to be very slow, just waiting for a little more sun!
A footnote to my Blog re California November 2015:
I wrote about the awful drought that Southern California was going through when I visited my Sister in California with a lot of restrictions on the usage of water, 2 minute showers etc. They still didn`t get much rain last year until the end of the year when they had several storms following each other. To date they have had so much rain that the rivers and gardens cannot take any more. A dam in Orriville Northern California overflowed and 180,000 people were evacuated. All this before the snow has melted on the mountains which runs down to the rivers. Some wild ducks obviously took a liking to to the very wet garden and have been visiting my Sister`s garden every day and making themselves at home. The good news is, at least the drought is over for now!
That`s about all for this time gardeners, enjoy the start of Spring and all the new planting ready for the summer……..
I started gardening 65 years ago on my Dad’s allotment and now live in Bournemouth, where spend a lot of time gardening since retiring. In 2012 I won the Gold Award for Bournemouth in Bloom Container Garden. I am a member of Thompson & Morgan’s customer trial panel.
by Jean Willis | Jan 23, 2017 | Begonias, Customer Trial Panel, Flowers, Gardening Posts, Roses, Summer gardening, Winter gardening, Your Stories
I hope everyone had a great Christmas and New Year and are now ready for the new gardening year ahead.
During the summer of 2016 I planted Passiflora Caerulea and it soon grew to eight feet, must really have loved it in the full sun. I had around six flowers on it by early Autumn and then I noticed the fruit about the size of an egg appearing and turning gradually yellow. By then the days were colder but left them on the plant to see if they developed any further. The first week of January I decided to take the fruit off and cut them open and was very surprised to see that there was a lot of ripe flesh inside. I decided not to eat them as they had been around for a while and was not sure if they were edible after so long.
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I started gardening 65 years ago on my Dad’s allotment and now live in Bournemouth, where spend a lot of time gardening since retiring. In 2012 I won the Gold Award for Bournemouth in Bloom Container Garden. I am a member of Thompson & Morgan’s customer trial panel.
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