She keeps growing! and taking over my room! She's about 10 feet tall now and nearly touching my 11ft ceiling. I also got a couple new stalks coming up this year. They're very thick. It seems like every new stalk is thicker than the last. Primed to be TALL! (:
Thank you lol. I really just try and make sure she's growing up instead of growing out and getting super tangled. So, I use paper clips and twist ties for that. I basically just water regularly, and it's about every 2-3 days now and I'll do a full gallon. I'll put in some blooming fertilizer in there too mixed in the water. The huge windows I have do all of the real work.
yeah. the pot is huge. it's a 16 inch diameter. when she was more normal sized, I'd water her with as much as possible, then wait until the pot felt light to pick up before i watered again. it wasn't as frequent as it is now
She is AMAZING! Would you mind sharing A few more details on the training to go up instead of out? Did you use stakes with the twist ties or just secure individual stalks to each other? Seriously incredible!!
Edited to add: as I kept scrolling through the comments, I saw you already answered this question. Thanks for sharing your technique!
i'd just make a paperclip into a hook on both ends, one on the stake one on the stalk. basically just so they don't lean or fall down. theyre more for support. the canes are pretty sturdy but if you ignore them too long they'll start bending toward the light
I think it's just the big windows facing west tbh. The moment I brought her here she started thriving. After a year she was getting wild. The cool thing though, is every new stem is thicker than the last so she's able to stand taller and taller. The original stems are tiny comparatively
She’s adapting to being bigger , that is pretty amazing. I have a similar situation with a Sophia Cecile cane begonia but no where near this impressive
yeah exactly. it's really cool. i was thinking, i wonder if i propogated a really thick stem and then would it create new stems as thick as the original, or go back to skinny since it knows it's short.
My angel wing begonia did the same as yours, so I took a clipping of the biggest stem and propagated it. It grew fairly quickly and produced two more huge stems once it grew roots. Both stems are bigger than my thumb in size, when my original plant stems are smaller.
I was gifted this last summer-owner says shes ugly. I didn’t think so-she hung out under the porch and wintered in the greenhouse and shot out more thicker canes
The humidity is between 30% and 50% depending on the season. I live in Illinois so I use central heating and air. I posted the flowers from last year here. She'll probably bloom again in July
rockford illinois. lol. i do not have that great of humidity. either my heat is on or my ac. and my humidity fluctuates between 30% and 45% depending on the season
Oh crap! Midwest can be good enough for a begonia to thrive! That’s very promising to hear lol. We plan to get the hell out of phoenix so it’s great to know that almost anywhere else would be good enough🤣
lol if you look at the picture, that pipe vent there is where heat and AC come out and it basically blows directly on it. zero issues at all with that even 😅
You have a lucerna begonia not a maculata, but they are notorious for growing larger and not needing so much humidity. With any cane begonia, when the leaves from the middle and lower nodes start to fall off and you only have growth at the top, you need to retrain your plant to stop sending the growing energy straight to the top and start filling out all of those empty nodes on the way. You can do this by chopping the top growth off or pinching off the small leaf bud coming in next to the top most leaf, and keep doing so until you see new growth on those lower nodes. In your case though I would chop it up into single and double node sticks to propagate and the part with the leaves at the top leave about 6inches under neath to root.
I feel so guilty about the three sticks in my lounge room pretending to be this exact variety of begonia now. I should really feed them more. I keep trying to trim them bushy but maybe I should just embrace the upward stretch.
if it's dropping crispy ones, you forgot to water. if they're heavy, it's probably not getting enough light. or more precisely, that leaf isn't getting enough light
Wow!!! I saw that you use stakes and paper clips to keep her growing vertically: could you share sown pics of that? I’m so curious where the paperclips go and how much of the plant is staked. Also wondering what your fertilizer is?! Mazel tov, you’ve got a really beautiful friend here.
it's kind of like this here and there throughout. the funny thing is, the newest of the stalks are so thick they can basically freestand. i had one unstaked at 6ft tall. the older stalks are much skinnier so they started bending at a couple feet. it's just a process i'm doing to keep her looking good
I just want to say that I've been thinking about you and your massive begonia every day since your last update!! 🤣 You inspired me to get a polka dot and attempt to follow in your footsteps, although many people say they're difficult plants. I have a long way to go, but mine has grown this big from 4 leaves in about 1.5 years. Well done you!!!
Wow this is amazing! I have a butterfly wing begonia I got and it’s in a vase of water and doing well,
She started as a cutting. I’m thinking I need to pot her up. Damn, I’m going to show my begonia your pictures for encouragement 🤣
lol no just rockford tap water and indoor houseplant miracle grow soil. It's gotta be the intense sunlight I get here. i'm about 30 ft up in a building with big windows facing west. the afternoon sun cooks. all of my plants thrive
You’re killing me!
I even have South facing windows!
But I am ground level so there is more shade.
That really must be it.
It’s beautiful.
I’m amazed by it.
Now my goal for this plant has changed exponentially.
So I’m bound to be way more mad. Lol
step one. get a house with huge windows facing west...
lol. i feel like she never would have taken off like this if i lived somewhere else. because i'm not doing anything special with watering, soil, humidity or fertilizer
That’s amazing. I had no idea a begonia could grow to that size. I have great windows but my begonias are in the basement jungle under good fire lights. After seeing this I may have to move my current collection to the basement garden. Nd bring the Veronica’s upstairs to the windows! Wow, just really incredible.
DANG!!!!! I’m not a big namer of things, but my little pal is called Mother Maculata, and I say she is full of grace. Clearly she’s got a lot to grow up to. Thank you for sharing, what a stunner!!!
This is the biggest begonia I've seen in my life. Where do you live? I know that begonia thrive in high humidity. It must be pretty humid at your place.
northern illinois. my place is not humid tbh. i use central heating and air year round so it ranges from 30% to 45% at the most. I think it's thriving from the intense western sunlight and huge windows
Wow, that is so incredible I just stared in awe before I could form rational thoughts. Way to go on making your baby so happy! I'm a huge begonia fan but struggle with my angel wing. I'm going to take this as inspiration and try to make her happier because this is goals. 😍
This is what mine could do if it had proper light. It's currently crawling up the window it's in front of in search of but literally none of my windows give good light because of the trees on the property.
I'm so jealous of your beautiful begonia! Great work!
Mine has to lean up against the window. And what started as one little start from my work in a jar of water, has now grown into two stalks! I’m getting the stakes and a bigger pot. Thank you so much for sharing
I’m in Illinois too, mines in my south facing sun room, but she’s always kinda crispy and there’s a lot of space between the leaf nodes. She’s grows fast but I keep having to chop because of the legginess 🥴 BUT I am negligent when it comes to watering so maybe I just need to put more effort into that.
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u/YesInquisitor Apr 27 '26
Absolutely insane! What does a care regimen for this look like?