If not in hot afternoon sun, try tuberous, Dragon Wings are tall but robust and bloom continuously, rexes if semi-shady. Try a combo and see what does best for you.

Here are the majority of my rexes from last September.
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Holy Mackeral, hcmcdole!!! Those take my breath away! Do you grow your rexes in clay pots for the most part? Mine are either in plastic or set out in the garden, where they do very well, btw.

I would think late afternoon sun would be too hot for begonias, but then I'm in Florida, not Chicago. Maybe the red or pink dragon wings would be good candidate, since they use them down here as bedding plants, and as long as they get enough water, they seem to handle the heat and sun very well.

judy

Hi Judy,

For the most part most of my rhizo and rex begonias are in clay pots (I tend to be heavy handed when it comes to watering).

I'm not in Chicago but in the Atlanta area and it does get pretty hot here. I think the begonias do fairly well with some sun but will burn (as I've recently done) if not acclimated. I've seen landscape begonias at Fairchild Gardens in Miami that had full afternoon sun on them without any ill effect. But then this was in late April 2005 and early March 2006 so maybe the garden has some shade during summer. I just know that it was getting pretty hot when I was down there.

Dragon Wings are very hard to beat for being tough and almost constantly blooming.

Here are some landscape begonias at Fairchild from last March. The two pictures with the hand in them is my meathook. The big leaf is nelumbiifolia and was in the conservatory. The rest of them pictures were outside in the gardens. The last picture shows how bright it was the day I was there and I put sunblock on knowing how hot it was the year before.

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Holy Cannoli! That's the biggest begonia leaf I ever saw!! I have a B. Art Hodes that's about to eat my front walk, but I don't think its leaves are *that* big.

Hmmmmmmmmmm. I'm beginning to see a pattern here. Fairchild...March...Miami Orchid Show... Or am I seeing things? Do you also grow orchids? Those have been my passion for the past twenty years, but I'm getting tired of all the work they involve. judy