The days go by, and two new begonias

I've missed a few days of reporting. We've had at least 2 weeks of dry weather. I'm glad that I’m back and able to water every 2 days or so. Bamboo is recovering from its shock of not having been watered for over a week. It's slowly filling in and providing some needed green.

I've begun fertilizing with liquid fertilizer (Miracle Grow) in weak batches. It's definitely growth time and everyone needs water and food!  Put 3 or 4 cups of Citrus Tone around the orange and watered in well. I bought some Plant Tone 5-3-3 for general application all over garden. I'll apply in a week or two.

I've also been watering the bougainvilleas. I want to water in Bougain fertilizer in hopes of more foliage and a fuller flush.  The east wall magenta plant is fairly leafless, though it just had a pretty full flush. The west wall which has a large purple bloomer in the corner, see opening pic of blog, has foliage but isn't coming back as aggressively as it did after 2nd flush. We'll see if this fertilizer works as advertised.

The past weekend I celebrated my 49th with a trip to Palm Hammock and bought beautiful begonias: b. 'My Friend' b. 'PHOE'S Red Fred'. Red is PHOE's newest hybrid. I'll post a pic ASAP. Good Friend is a creeping rhizome Rex. Fabulous leaf coloration and texture. There were a lot of begonias in bloom it was quite a treat. I joined the Miami begonia society. I would like to have joined the ABS instead but the ladies seemed very nice and like the club needed support.

I have to start thinking about how I'm going to provide shade during the summer sun, without completely hiding the begonias. Wind and rain during summer storms... I may have to move them. We've had some breezy days and it's blown around Cloe and the Pulmaria which I moved away from E. boug as it was shading the lower part of the plant too much. But, the pulmaria is tall and top heavy. It's strong, but gets pushed around by wind. I've moved it where it used to be against outside rail next to pillar. I've wired the middle of the plant to the rail which holds it some.

Still no off-shoots from the stems of Selph's Mahogany, I'm wondering if I should just pop off a piece of one of the rhizomes and plant in soil and see how it comes up.

I repotted Caribbean King. I pulled apart the rhizomes and planted chunks in a larger pot with nice soil. I'm not sure it's worth having that large pot dedicated to that one as the leaves are pretty plain. I've thought about putting in some rhizomes from the b that looks like a Prince Palomar, though I’m not sure. The mix of the two might be interesting. The prince is coming into bloom and though it's sparsely covered with leaves (an over pruning). I'll wait till it's done.