Hi All

I have five Picotee Upright Begonias and all of them have successful leafed out except one. The one that has not leafed out is the one I thought was the most promising since I have had it for two seasons now and the bulb is roughly three times the size of the others. Needless to say that was not the case. A nice lady at my local nursery told me not to plant my begonias until they little red sprouts on them and to include a lot of perilite around the bulb. I followed her advice but my biggest one grew a shoot and then the shoot died just after it reached the surface and just before it could make its first leaves.

I noticed that everything went down hill after I discovered that a very stupid squirrel partially dug it up and took a small bite out of it (thinking it was eatable I guess). I think that squirrel may have damaged some of the young roots. I noticed just yesterday that the shoot had turn brown and died, and that there were little white worms near the surface. I had seen this before just prior to losing a bulb, so I carefully dug up the bulb for inspection and found that the worms were living in a small spongy part. I very carefully cut out the dead and decayed part, being sure to remove all the white worms and lightly re-potted the bulb. Most of the bulb is still alive and well, but other than that, I don't know what else to do in order to save this begonia. Sorry for the lengthy story but does anyone have any suggestions? I would greatly appreciate any and all ideas.

Thanks

Bamboo