Giant Gorgeous Begonias From Southern Living Via Walmart

Maybe a big begonia. That might be what's missing. An option. Perhaps. None of this is planted in here. I just have some things sitting in here just hanging out. I want to get this crabapple planted up with some just nice looking colorful things. And I have some things in here already, some plants that is, that I would like to keep in here. Red twig, not red twig, yellow twig dogwood. Gonna provide some nice winter interest. Sunjoy bright red barberry down there so it can stab me every time I try to move the container. I want the Feather Falls Carex in the front. The fern, Caladium, and the Aurelia. They're going to have to go as well as this guy. He's just hanging out there. He needs a repot. So I ordered some begonias from Southern Living. I was like, oh, I want that big bold foliage. I think about heucheras. And I was like, yeah, let's try begonias. Heucheras are fun. I love the color perennial semi-evergreen. But I just thought, no, begonias. Improving winters, they have some nice big begonias. I didn't know they were going to be this big though. All right. Yeah, I don't know how big they're going to be. I haven't opened the packages yet, but I wasn't thinking they'd be that huge. The packages, anyways, are gigantic. They weren't very expensive. I ordered them from Walmart. I don't remember how much they were, but it wasn't a lot. I think it was less than 18 bucks a pop. So, huh. Anyways, I don't know if this is really worthy of a video. Well, of course, it's unboxing plants. People always enjoy that. I was excited. I always like to pick up the camera when I'm excited to open something up and get to see something fun on the inside. These might be really big. They might also just be in really big containers. That's entirely possible too. Wouldn't surprise me one. Oh no, no, no, no. That's, this is a nice size plant. Wow. Look at that. The inside of the box has a pinkish hue to it. It's kind of tripping me out. Whoa. That is huge. Absolutely massive. I'm just going to tear into it. It's the size of these things. I want to rip them apart. So I'm going to cut the top of the box off the bottom. Wow. All right. Well, that was worth every single penny. Southern Liven, they always come through with the good plants. This is called Sterling Moon. It's a Lunar Lights series of Begonia that 24 to 30 inches high by 24 to 30 inches wide. Look at that picture. This is beautiful. It's the size of these leaves. They have a nice iridescent sheen to them. A beautiful underside covered in trichomes, all those little hairs. Awesome. Go ahead and read the rest of it. Hardy's on 17. Oh, Oh, I was wondering about that. So when I ordered these on Walmart's website, it said Hardy's on six through nine. I thought, Hmm, I don't know. Maybe. I have had Rex Begonias returned to me before in the landscape. We've had mild winters, particularly if they're near areas that were already protected, like near the gingers, something like that. Seven through nine. That's pretty impressive. Rex Begonias. Well, a lot of Begonias actually can be quite cold hardy. I recommend giving them a try. If you're in zone eight, try them all. Try all the Begonias. See what happens. I am technically a zone seven now, but I'm not really buying it. I'm six B. I'm staying six B. That was what, Oh, backwards. Hello. Wow. That's a greasy camera lens right up the nose too. Hope y'all enjoyed that. I might give one of these a try in the ground. I was thinking about it. It says zone seven. Why not? Chances are they'll take a while to wake up. It's going to need to get nice and warm for them. So I'm going to be very patient. Make sure they go someplace with really good, well-drained soil that has some protection during the winter time. So maybe near a wall, something of the sorts. God, that's beautiful. I want to plant it up now, but I'm getting ready to leave. I have white shorts on. I think that'd be a bad idea. As far as hardy Begonias go, ones that are really reliable, the grandest type, can't go wrong. There are lots of different cultivars. Wasn't the grandest type to try. Look at, see, 110 pound dog. Does that give you anything? He wears like a triple XL dog sweater. Does that help? Usually a size 4T in baseball jerseys. It's a four toddler. He's a big boy. Sometimes a 6T depending on the brand. Yeah, this one looks great too. That foliage is just awesome. I'm just really surprised. I wasn't expecting them to be this large, if you can't tell from the way I keep talking about how freaking huge they are, because one, they were not very expensive. And two, they're Begonias. Begonias are typically one of those plants where you can propagate them so easily. You know, it's lots and lots of cuts, throw them into a four inch pot, and then people charge usually like, you know, six to $12 for something in a four inch container. So I just wasn't expecting something that's already so nice and established looking. So here we go. Look at that in a shade planter. Oh, that's perfect. I'm so excited to get this planted up. I don't know for sure if I'm going to stick these in this container or if they're going to go into my front porch planters in place with some coleus that I'm just not crazy about. I want to be sure they're not getting too much sun. This crabapple is going to go in a spot where it's going to be getting a good amount of sun, but I could always cash pot them or cash pot one of them in here. The thing is, if I do this on the front porch, then I need them both because they're planters that are on each side of the door. Whereas back here, I just have the one crabapple planter, so I could just put one in there. But when it goes into place, which will be eventually over here in this corner when all the tropicals have to go inside, that'd be way too much light for that begonia. So I don't know. There's lots of options. I'm sure y'all will know what's happened with them at some point because I will film it. I just wanted to make a quick little video and talk about these plants. I was excited to open the package and you just never know, right? You get a big box in the mail and think, oh, this is a really nice big plant, but sometimes there's just a really big root ball and it's a teeny tiny little plant. No, these are very, very impressive. And I should comment on how well these shipped. These shipped very well. Begonias are very snappy plants and there's hardly any breakage on them. I wouldn't fault them if there were a lot of breakage on the plants because they're begonias. And sometimes that's just what happens when you mail order plants. I say mail order. That's not really a thing anymore, is it? Online order plants. They break. You have some spilt soil. It's what's to be expected. But, uh, no, no. A little inflorescence in there. Inconspicuous. Insignificant, perhaps. I wouldn't say it's insignificant, but that'll be really cute, especially the whole thing recovered. This thing still has a lot of growing to do, too. 18 to 30 inches or whatever that tag said. This is just over a foot tall, probably, I would say. This is going to be a gorgeous plant. Begonias make wonderful houseplants, too. So if you like growing begonias inside, get one of these Southern Living ones. I ordered mine from Walmart. Give that a try. It's way cheaper to get in the teeny tiny little guys and just waiting for them to grow. Oh, this is just spectacular. I absolutely love it. Okay. Abrupt change. I know it's been several days. I don't, there's nothing to hide there. I did not need my hand in that shot, but I wanted to give it some time because sometimes when plants are shipped, they go through some things, particularly begonias. That's not good lighting at all. So I gave it some time. I also ordered a few more. And yeah, I thought I'd show y'all that after about 10 days is what it's been. They're still looking pretty good. There has been some die off. We also went through an extreme heat spill. Triple digits, right? So the ones that I initially got that you saw at the beginning of the video still looking pretty good. I ordered three more from Plants by Mail and they just up looking absolutely awful. So, you know, I don't know who's to blame for that. These are the ones from Plants by Mail. I think it was Plants by Mail. Pretty sure. Uh, yeah. They just, they were all jumbled in their packages. They were falling apart and upside down. I don't know if it was the shipper who handled them incorrectly. If they could have been packaged better. I still, I know that we have the boxes with the little push in thing, but if you just put a stake in them, it would help tremendously. But there are begonias. Begonias, they rebound so quickly. So it'll be okay. These have had time now for whatever was going to happen to them to happen. And I just need to clean them up. They'll flush back out and look pretty good. The reason that I placed another order was partially because I liked the ones that got in so much that I just, I had to get some more of them, especially when I was thinking about maybe putting some of them into the landscape. But, uh, the ones that Walmart had had that I ordered weren't available anymore. It was like $17 and 80 cents or something like that. Home Depot had them for 40 something. That might've been for a two-pack though. I honestly, I really don't remember. Uh, but then Plants by Mail shipped and I said, okay, well I'll order them from them. Cause they also had some aloes that I was looking to get that Southern Living carries. And, uh, well, yeah, can't win them all. The other one is over here. So that one over there, that was one of the ones from the place. So you can see right here, these are the two from the very beginning. Still looking nice, right? Looking pretty good. I have those other ones tucked more into a spot where they're going to get just a smidge more light than these are because I was worried about rot with the way they were decaying. They should be fine. I don't think they're going to rot out. I'm not going to plant them up into the landscape right now. I would love to, but with something that's marginally hardy doing that this time of year, it's just not a good idea. I might talk myself into it. The thing is begonias, they have a little corm type thing. A lot of them do. Some have more than others. You have your begonia grandis, which is this down here. This is a pink teardrops, I believe, from Plant Delights. Comes back every single year. Very hardy. Zone five, probably, I would say. Those over there, they're staying in zone seven. And I think it would be smart that if I were going to put those into the landscaping to try and do that, not necessarily early spring, but maybe mid-spring when the temperatures are warm enough to have them out and the ground's warm enough for them to go ahead and set their roots out and grow, right? I put them in the ground right now. They're not going to have much time to establish themselves and then be ready to take on winter. And I really don't expect them to be hardy here because we're 6B, 7A. Officially 7A. If you type in my zip code, it's 7A. But it's not unusual for us to drop below zero. And, you know, they've changed up those zone maps and everything. I would say if you're a 7B, give them a shot. 7A, you have a nice protected sheltered spot, right? Maybe near a wall or something where you have that radiant heat during the winter months. And that might work out for you. Where I am? I don't know. I don't know. We will find out next year. Well, actually, no, I probably will go ahead and drop one in the ground this year because that's why I ordered a whole bunch more. I have five of them now. Two of them for some planters on my front porch. And then I have three others to just grow on. I'll probably hold on to one as a house plant. I'll hold on to two of them actually this winter and use those as house plants. And then I'll go ahead and drop one in the ground this year and I'm probably going to put it someplace that I know is going to stay fairly warm during the winter. So near a spot that gets a lot of mulch, like maybe over here near the gingers, or I don't think this would work out because this area is pretty dang full. But, you know, I do have a little spot in here where I could tuck one in right over here or right over here, but I think it would end up getting smothered. But this is an area that stays pretty dang warm during the wintertime, hence the gingers and the sable miners and everything, which I do protect. It's been a few years since we had a winter where I didn't need to protect them, and even with protection they still almost completely defoliate some winters. So, you know, that's just to give an idea of what my climate's like. It's... it's weird. I live in the middle of the country. There are some days where it's in the 60s during the winter and then, you know, a couple days later it might be negative 10. You just don't know. We just vacillate all over the place. Vacillate. Jump around quite a bit, so I'm going to think hard about getting one of these into the ground. It's going to be one of the ones that looks a lot healthier, and, uh, you know, I'll make my mind up on that fairly soon. For the most part, I just wanted to make this video just to show them off because I thought they were so incredibly beautiful and such a nice price, too. That $17.88 will say $18 from Walmart. Wonderful, and I think they were around $20 maybe $22 from Plants by Mail if that's where I ordered them from. I will put up on the screen if I'm wrong about that, but I think that's where these other ones came from. And I got a Safari Dawn and a Safari Rose Aloe also that, just like the others, they just showed up looking absolutely awful. Completely smashed and out of their containers and they're all bruised up. They're not looking very good. They're looking better now, kind of. It's been about a week, is that right? Yeah, Safari Sunrise. Look at all that. Look at all the die-off. So I gotta come in here and really give these a good clean out. I haven't met a spot where they're going to stay pretty dry and they're getting sheltered light for right now, but this is just, I mean, come on. The whole plant was just smashed in the container and it was almost completely out of the pot. This one's looking better than the other one. I really need to clean that up and probably hit it with a fungicide. This is the Safari Rose Aloe. These are supposed to be nice because they bloom prolifically. It's a compact first year blooming aloe. Hoot and drought tolerant. Flowers from summer to midwinter. Repeat bloomer with rose pink flowers. It's a zone 9 to 11. Yes, it's a low water. It's supposed to be a fast grower. Just overall a fun, nice succulent to have around. I'm looking forward to getting some flowers out of these, but that's only going to happen if I really get this one cleaned up. I'm going to take them back over the table with me so I can remember to chop all that dead stuff out of there and treat it with something. It does have nice form to it. The nice thing about these being aloes, as long as there's some stem left on these pieces, I can revive them. So I could take a piece like this and, nope, that's rotten out. I can keep cutting away until there's no rot and try and revive them. So I do want to point out this is no fault of Southern Living. This is the mail carrier and or the people who shipped them because they just weren't packaged very well. I order plants all the time. It's not that often I have an order come in that's as bad as this one was. They were also laying in my driveway, which I think is odd. They had to walk further to put them where they put them than if they left them on my front porch, which is sheltered, and it was like 100 degrees outside. But I got them right away. My security alerted me that these were here, so they didn't really sit out in the sun for more than a minute or two, but the packages were all just busted up and looking terrible. Yeah, it's not the end of the world. Can still revive this guy, but never ideal, right? Begonias, they're going to recover quickly, and they're so pretty. Even these shabby looking ones, they're so pretty. I cannot wait for these to take on their full size, 24 to 30 inches. That's just going to be a nice big bush of beautiful, big silvery foliage. Part of that Lunar White series. I don't remember if I had talked about that. These are a great option for the shade in the garden because when you have something that has this lighter tone to it, it stands out, and it brightens up the shade, and it draws your eye back into the shade. So even just putting these into a container, I know for me, I'm going to be using more of a dark container so that the plant stands out. I'm not being drawn to the pot, but I'm really seeing the foliage highlight the shady areas. Oh, just so pretty, right? Gotta love it. That's the whole point of the video, just showing off some nice looking plants, talking about a good deal. A lot of us know, especially houseplant people, that begonias can get pricey sometimes. Such a good deal. This is a great big plant, and honestly, if I saw these at a nursery, not in this shape, but they were looking a little bit better when they were delivered, and then, you know, they declined because they'd been all bruised up and everything. But new foliage is already pushing out though. That was another reason I had to give this about 10 days, nearly two weeks, because I wanted to see what the bounce back was going to be like, and they already have some good bounce back going on. So I'm gonna grab my pruners, get these guys cleaned up, and start potting them up, and do some other things with them. Thanks for hanging out. Have you been growing begonias? Do you experiment with hardy begonias? Especially those of you who are like 7b into zone 8, there are a ton of begonias you can grow. Here where I am, St. Louis, your best bet is a Grandus type begonia, the Heron's Pirouette. Beautiful. They get really tall, massive. There's one called Smooch that has really glossy green foliage, but they're all the begonia Grandus type. There's not these great big, beautiful, big-leaved ones. They have pretty big leaves on them, but it's not anything like this. You don't get that exotic, bright variegation. I love them. All right, time for me to get to it. Thanks for hanging out. Hope everybody's doing well. Have a great day, great day. Everything's going absolutely beautifully for you. Oh, let me know about these aloes. I haven't tried these before. I've tried this species of aloe before, but not just the varieties, these types that are being sold. Yeah, they're just labeled as aloe hybrid, huh? Okay, that's fine. Keeping your secrets. Nothing wrong with that. Pretty sure we've all seen those before, but I like when companies sometimes take something like that where you have to do some guesswork when you're out shopping for succulents. You go, I think that this is that type, but you know, half the time they're labeled as assorted succulent. It's just labeled. You just know that that's going to be a prolific bloomer, a reliable bloomer at that. That's not even what this video was about, but I thought I'd throw it in there. All right, as always, and most importantly, everybody keep on growing. Bye.