easy care garden

Looking for a colorful, heat and drought-tolerant landscape plant that lasts in containers and hanging baskets or that fills a lot of space in the garden and landscape? Then check out today's guest post on the red-hot, Bonfire begonias, from Sabina Reiner, brand manager for Selecta First Class, Inc.

The Bonfire series, which now includes the Bonfire Choc varieties featuring dark "chocolate" foliage, was developed by Tesselaar Plants and is now sold through the Ball Horticultural Company network as part of the Selecta First Class catalogue of products.

There are lots of begonias on the market, but Bonfire has brought them to the forefront again. Tell us all about it, Sabina!

Sabina Reiner

Bonfire begonia

Bonfire — the HOTTEST begonias on the market

By Sabina Reiner

The Bonfire series of begonias is not only one of our best-selling single varieties — it's one of the top consumer plants out there. Bonfire begonias are a great convenience plant for consumers, first and foremost, because they require less water and recover easily from drought stress.

Bonfire begonias also take the heat and perform like a champ, with brilliant, dramatic color all summer long.

These beautiful begonias are a great choice for visual appeal and interest in your garden or on your patio. They're high-impact, low-maintenance plants, creating continuous color and vibrant floral displays with a minimum of effort.

As a home gardener, I tested this series in my own garden. The key, I learned, is to not overwater it. It flowers from early summer through early frost, handling more heat and cold than many other begonia varieties. It also loves humidity. Although it'll tolerate shade or partial shade, it'll flower most profusely and produce the most vibrant color in full sun.

And yes, you can overwinter Bonfire begonia indoors (see "Overwintering Bonfire" below).

Last year, Selecta added Bonfire Scarlet (with brilliant red-orange blooms) to its product collection:

Bonfire (Scarlet) begonia in hanging basket

Bonfire in the landscape

Now, for 2010/20111, we're adding the dramatic, dark-foliaged Bonfire Choc series.

In addition to exciting, new, dark "chocolate" foliage, the Bonfire Choc varieties offer a great upright to mounding habit, making them perfect for containers, hanging baskets and landscaping. And like the original Bonfire series, Bonfire Choc varieties are extremely drought-tolerant and heat-tolerant while delivering colorful flowers and fantastic foliage all summer long.

Bonfire Choc Red

Bonfire Choc Pink

Bonfire Choc won rave reviews when it was introduced at this year's California Spring Trials (the annual event unveiling many new plant introductions about to hit the market). Choc Red, in fact, was one of garden guru Allan Armitage's top picks at the trial! Southern Living's Grumpy Gardener also praised the Bonfire series there.  

Design tips

I've found that the Bonfire and Bonfire Choc varieties look most provocative when paired or grouped with deep burgundies, true purples and/or silver foliage. 

Overwintering Bonfire

Gardeners in cold climates can overwinter Bonfire begonias indoors. Just let the plant rest in a cold (not freezing), dry place. The images below show the progression of Bonfire coming back to life in the spring.

Pancake-like Bonfire begonia tubers starting to wake up:

1½ months later:

 And I look forward to it returning to its glorious state:

Thanks so much for contributing, Sabina!

Also check out the great post by Margaret Roach, author of the popular A Way to Garden blog, on her love of Bonfire begonias and her success in overwintering them. Bonfire begonias were also the Featured Plant of the Week in this May 19 post by Valley View Farms (one of the largest and most complete independent garden centers in the mid-Atlantic region)!

The original Bonfire begonia was also named as one of 10 “basket-worthy annuals that can take the heat and the sun” in the May 7 PennLive.com post (featuring a picture of Bonfire) by George Weigel (garden writer for the Patriot-News in Harrisburg, Va., circulation 102,000).  Bonfire and Bellfire begonias also star in the annual edition of Container Gardening magazine (by Fine Gardening, circulation 140,000).

Have you grown Bonfire begonias, or tried to overwinter them? Please post a comment, and include some pics!

As those mailorder gardening catalogs start flooding in over the next few weeks, it’s easy to get caught up in the beauty shots of each new plant, all by itself.

What’s difficult, however, is visualing how to use these new introductions as part of drought-tolerant plant combinations that give you dramatic flowers, fantastic foliage AND a low-maintenance garden.

That’s where this series of posts comes in, on Tesselaar’s new plant introductions for 2010. I’ve hunted down some fantastic companion plants for each of them, along with a few design ideas in general, all with easy-care, as well as design ideas, for each new plant - all of them designed with easy-care gardening in mind.

Today, the focus is Ceanothus Tuxedo^® (far left image and lower right corner in collage, at right).

The first-ever black-leaved ceanothus, or California lilac, Tuxedo’s fall-blooming shrub’s lavender-blue flowers absolutely pop out at you from from their dark, dramatic backdrop of purplish-black foliage. The extremely drought-tolerant selection, which grows 8’ high by 6’ wide, is also able to handle a windy slope and well-behaved when it comes to pruning.

Drought-tolerant design idea

Here’s a drought-tolerant fall combo (left) suggested in an Oct. 13, 2009 post on the “Daily Dirt” blog (at http://ow.ly/uliN) by Pacific Coast Home & Garden, the premier garden, home décor and hardware store on the Central Coast. In the image above, in the top right corner, are the following plants, clockwise from the top right corner: ‘Helena’s Blush’, Flax Lily ‘Little Rev’, Correa ‘Wyn’s Wonder’ and Ceanothus Tuxedo.   

Perfect color companions

Amplify the black-and blue theme with other blue fall bloomers like Tesselaar’s Agapanthus Bluestorm™ or any of the 10 blue fall bloomers suggested by About.com garden guide Marie Iannotti. Or, create a complementary color scheme by pairing the lavender-blue Tuxedo blooms with yellow fall bloomers like helenium, beautifully featured by Monica Milla in her Sept. 19, 2008 post titled "Favorite Fall Bloomers" on her gardening blog, Full Bloom (at http://mlive.com/fullbloom).