Gertrude's Flower Garden Weekly Diary

2/6/04 - This week we had a little break in the bitter cold, snowy weather that we have been having. In the middle of the week, we had a heavy rainstorm with temperatures reaching the forties. A great deal of snow melted in a hurry causing water to invade my basement and drip from my entrance ceiling. Fortunately, the rain ended before it did any real damage. Another storm is forecast for the end of the week. I hope by that time the garden will have dried out, and that the weather does not turn sharply cold. This has happened before, and the result is a sheet of ice in the garden that takes a long time to melt and is not good for the dormant perennials and shrubbery. Well, I keep reminding myself that spring is coming--it always does.
I have begun the next step in my basement garden; transplanting the tiny seedlings from the boxes in which they germinated into seventy-two opening flats. So far I have transplanted two flats of White Impatiens and a flat of Impatiens in mixed colors. Most of these seedlings are quite tiny, but I felt that I should be getting started so that I don't have too many to do at one time. Also, Impatiens are sturdy little fellows--I rarely have had any not take hold once transplanted. Before this week is over I hope to transplant another tray of the Impatiens in mixed colors and a tray of Wings Begonias. You will remember that I lost most of my first planting of these Begonias to damp-off, but some of them survived and are now large enough to transplant. I will try to show you a picture next week of some flats of seedlings.
One of my oldest annual garden flowers is the Wings Begonia. I no longer remember how we came to get them started. I suspect that we bought seeds many years ago, although in today's seed catalogs, I have rarely seen a variety of Begonia desiginated as "Wings." The Wings variety of Begonia is a larger plant that has larger flowers than the standard Begonia varieties. However they came originally into Gertrude's Garden, we have saved seeds for as many years as I can remember, planted them in the basement garden, and transplanted them along both sides of the driveway and to edge various beds. Taylor says of the Begonia family (Begoniaceae): "An immense genus of tropical herbs with soft or succulent stems. Leaves alternate, often brightly colored or with colored veins. Flowers red, pink, yellow, or white, slightly irregular, the male and female separate." Wings Begonias do self-seed and some of the little "volunteers" get large enough before frost to flower. Each year, besides collecting seeds for the next year, I pot a few of these little Wings Begonias and bring them into the glass room where they grow to full sixe and flower during the winter months. With the Geraniums and Christmas Cactus, they provide lovely winter flowers for me. This week's picture is a close-up of one of the Wings Begonias in a lovely shade of pink. When warm weather comes, I will reward it for brightening my winter days by planting it outside.

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