Hi Gang! I hope you all are having a wonderful Spring in your gardens!

I'm wondering if Begonias will grow back after being cut back by 1/3, or will that be detrimental?

Thanks!

Hi! Yes, they will keep growing. To be able to speak more specifically, what kind of Begonias do you have?

Red dragon something or other. I usually keep the tags, but I threw these tags out.

Sounds like this kind?
Dragon Wing Begonia (Begonia Dragon Wing® Red)

If you click onto the page you should see an "add this plant to your list" button. If that is your plant, you could click the button to add it to your plant list, which this site will store for you for free. No need to try to remember. : + )

It's no problem to trim them. You can use the trimmings to make more plants. Make your cut right above a leaf, for 2 reasons. First, you don't want it to look like it has "sticks" at the tips, and second is in case you want to use the trimmings, you'll have the longest possible length of stem to stick into soil, all the way until the bottom leaf is touching the soil.

Yes, that's it! It's an annual, and my annual choices change from year to year, bc I personally get bored with using the same annuals year after year, so I don't keep annuals in my list, unless I absolutely love the plant. 🤷 I got these Begonias (among other annuals and perennials ) from a school fundraiser, sight unseen, bc the child lives one hour and 20 minutes away. She's our DD's boyfriend's niece. DD called to see if I was interested in buying for this girl's school. She knew I would!! 😏😏 Of course there's so many varieties of begonias, so she described this variety to me, along with other plants that can be different colors. At one point she stopped and said to the people on her end of the call, "You have to know my Mom. She LOVES plants!" I think they thought she was pushing them on me.

@purpleinopp

There is a gorgeous trailing begonia that I had a few years ago, that I just loved! I got them at a local hardware store, and there were no tags on them. That begonia I absolutely loved and would definitely keep on my list to use in that location every year!

Happy to suggest, and love to talk Begonias! That IS a gorgeous plant in your pic! The blooms are so big.
LOVE! Sounds like a good fund-raiser. Our school never tries anything so interesting.

Your dragon wing is a perennial, but unless it is brought inside to protect it from winter, it can't survive perennially in your location.

purpleinopp said:Sounds like this kind?
Dragon Wing Begonia (Begonia Dragon Wing® Red)

If you click onto the page you should see an "add this plant to your list" button. If that is your plant, you could click the button to add it to your plant list, which this site will store for you for free. No need to try to remember. : + )

Unless she is certain that is the exact cultivar, the name Dragon Wing is a common name for many begonias. The one you linked is from a registered series, Dragon Wing®, with a cultivar name of 'Bepared'

Thank you, Sue. It looks like a generic entry for red DW, the only choice for a generic DW entry when searching "dragon wing", unless the flowers are pink.

Yes, we can't make separate generic entries by begonia types so they all fall into the generic Begonia entry.

Hmm... wax Begonias have a generic entry, and canes, Riegers, and Rex. I appreciate what you are saying, but there are too many Begonias to not have generic pages for the different types at least.

The name of the page in question does not list the cultivar name in the same way as most cultivar pages, that I've noticed anyway:
This
Dragon Wing Begonia (Begonia Dragon Wing® Red)
vs. this:
Cane Begonia (Begonia 'Corallina de Lucerna')

Thank you!

That's because the plant creator registered it as a series and a trade name, the trade name is 'Red' in that series. The second one you posted is with just the cultivar name, it was not created with a separate trade name.

When you enter a new plant, it's explained: "Trade names are generally trademarked names that sellers use for marketing the plants. A plant with a trade name will always have a cultivar name (often a series of numbers and letter that don't spell anything). The trade name almost always includes a (tm) symbol. When you have a group of different but similar plants that have trade names, then you can group them by using Series."

The begonias you listed don't have generic entries per se, they are species names followed by cultivars related to those species. So we have two wax species listed so not all wax begonias belong together in one entry, depends on which species they are related to. Same thing with the cane ones.
For wax:
Wax Begonia (Begonia cucullata)
Wax Begonia (Begonia x semperflorens-cultorum)

Cane:
Cane Begonia (Begonia coccinea)
Cane Begonia (Begonia aconitifolia)

My bad! The Reiger's do have one generic entry:
Rieger Begonia (Begonia x hiemalis)

As does Rex:
Rex Begonia (Begonia rex)

purpleinopp said:Happy to suggest, and love to talk Begonias. Our school never tries anything so interesting.

Your dragon wing is a perennial, but unless it is brought inside to protect it from winter, it can't survive perennially in your location.

Tiffany, begonias are sold as annuals in our neck of the woods. And bringing any plant indoors means certain botanical death, under my care. I have a brown thumb indoors and a green thumb outdoors.

Calif_Sue said:

Unless she is certain that is the exact cultivar, the name Dragon Wing is a common name for many begonias. The one you linked is from a registered series, Dragon Wing®, with a cultivar name of 'Bepared'

Well, now I'm thoroughly confused. Sue, is there a cultivar with the word "dragon" in the name? Bc I'm 100% positive that "dragon" was on the tag, and "wings" might have been too, but I'm less positive on that one. I'm inclined to believe that the nursery just used the general name. 🤷

Here's what they looked like, pre-pruning.



They were stunning when I received them, but both of them wound up a bit scorched by brief morning sun exposure, with dry soil, while waiting in the wings to be transplanted in to a normal pot, bc they came in this idiotic pot design, making it difficult to keep them properly hydrated



So, I had a couple of days of debilitation, last week, when temps were in the mid 80's, and I didn't remotely think to ask someone to water them. Hence the reason to prune.

Dragon Wings is a common name for begonias with that leaf shape.
Some grower decided to register the name as a series.

I disagree with the claim that "Dragon Wing" is a common name for many begonias.

It is the term of "Angel Wing" that is commonly used for many cane begonia species and hybrids with wing-shaped leaves (including Dragon Wing® Begonias).

The Dragon Wing® name is registered to Ball Seed/PanAmerican Seed for their two interspecific F1 hybrid seed strain cultivars of Begonia rubriflora (U014) x Begonia semperflorens, called 'BEPAPINK' and 'BEPARED'. Only the F1 seed from this cross is viable. The seedlings/plants that grow from them will be sterile and can't set seed. That's what makes them such non-stop, blooming machines. Great plants!
(Although, they can make a right slimy, slippery mess on your porch if you don't keep up with sweeping away all of the fallen flowers!)

Dragon Wing Begonia (Begonia Dragon Wing® Red)
Dragon Wing Begonia (Begonia Dragon Wing® Pink)

Interestingly, although Begonia 'Canary Wing' was developed from a branch mutation of 'BEPAPINK' it can't be marketed as a Dragon Wing® Begonia. Since the mutation wasn't found/developed by Ball Seed, they don't own the patent so they have no reason to share their trademark.

The Dragon Wing® Begonias have been so popular since they were introduced around 20 years ago, that it was probably inevitable that the "Dragon Wing" name would get misapplied to other, similar-looking Begonias on occasion.

There are also a couple of earlier hybrid cultivars called Begonia 'Dragon Wing' and Begonia 'Dragon Wings' but these are unrelated to 'BEPAPINK' and 'BEPARED'. I'm not even sure if they are commercially available anymore.

Like Tiffany said, cutting your Dragon Wing® Begonias back partway will do no harm and will also give you cuttings to root!

Begonias are the best!

Whoops, thanks Danita, I got hung up with the Wing part of the name in my head, that's what happens with late night typing and lack of sleep the last few days caring for a sick dog!

Oh no, Sue I hope that you and your pup feel better soon.

Sorry that I got a "little" long-winded with my geek-out reply!

It's okay, Danita! Thank you for the info!

TBH, I really won't root the cuttings. It's just not something I'm willing to do for annuals. 🤷 Plus I've never rooted cuttings, but I will be trying that on a perennial soon!

Begonias are only an annual if not protected from winter. If you wanted to, you could bring it inside to keep it going indefinitely. To use the cuttings, just stick them in the soil somewhere where you would like to see more Begonias (until your first frost.)

These are not annuals, they're great perennials to root! I put mine in water on a windowsill and they all create roots quickly. Sometimes with certain plants water roots are the not greatest when you go to repot them, all of these I have done over the years have done the transition fine. I grow several inside year round on east facing windows and the rest are under the eaves on the front and back porches.

purpleinopp said:Begonias are only an annual if not protected from winter. If you wanted to, you could bring it inside to keep it going indefinitely. To use the cuttings, just stick them in the soil somewhere where you would like to see more Begonias (until your first frost.)

Right. Like I said, I won't root any, nor will I bring them inside bc I have a brown thumb when it comes to indoor plants. Bringing them inside would be a death sentence for the poor plants. I really appreciate your enthusiasm, but there's no talking me in to doing that. Therefore, based on your comment, I choose to treat them as annuals.

Sue, I appreciate your enthusiasm as well, and perhaps in Southern California, begonias are typically (treated as) perennial, but, they are typically (chosen to be treated as) annuals, here. Even in the industry, begonias are not offered for sale as indoor plants, from indoor greenhouses/garden centers, during our Winter season. 🤷 They only hit the market in the Spring with the annuals, here in NE Ohio.

I'm going to unwatch my thread now, bc, very respectfully, I have only been interested in the answer to my literal question.

Thanks, and happy gardening!