You can leave the tubers in the ground all year so long as the drainage is good, you mark the spot, and you feed them with good compost each year. Unless you have soil-borne munchers - grubs, snails, slugs, and the like that your local birds don't keep under control. They might need lifting as they go into dormancy, and holding until the new growth is well-established before being replanted, if you have garden grazers. :-((

Some varieties are quite upright and might have either green leaves, edged red, or dark red leaves which can be very effective even without the flowers. Others have a cascading form and look good in raised beds or, if it's no bother, in hanging baskets or taller planters.

You might find they do better for you on your north side, if that's got garden space. And they go well with ferns, toning Impatiens, and Hostas or bromeliad cultivars (Aechmea and Guzmania, perhaps).

Initially, just buy six packs and grow them on. By the second year they'll be bulking up and the flower form can change. After three years or so the tubers can be as large across as a baseball (though they are more flattened) and will be producing several stems. Some have flowers that are too heavy and the stems can snap unless supported by canes or hoops.

The colour range goes from white - sometimes blushed, pinks, strong scarlet or red, pale and dark yellow, orange both strong and soft.

Flower forms can be single, double with flowers like Camellias, or with picotee edging.

Fungus can affect them, particularly later in the season and the leaves can look miserable.

In this zone the early frosts wither the leaves and let the old stems gently snap off so the tuber goes into dormancy. Not sure what happens in a warmer zone. Some tubers will put up new leaves if there is a warm break but they haven't the vigour of the earlier leaves and there's not much point to pushing them to grow on without that rest.

For me, over winter is wet so the in-ground begonias don't get a 'dry time'. They are fairly drought-hardy over the summer but obviously do better with reliable watering and liquid feeding at the usual strength.

One you might like to try is B boliviensis, or a cultivar - if you like scarlet/orange-red. It gets to about three feet and is generous with flowers. A good statement plant in the right place.

For understorey planting some of the older rhizomatous cultivars can be useful and attractive although the flowers aren't eye-catching.

I live on the big island and there isn't a begonia I haven't grown. Grow tuberous begonias under trees in raised beds or containers so they have the best drainage possible. All the begonias do well in shade except the solenia type which need a very bright place with morning sun.All begonias are perenial here and some of the bedding types can be down right invasive in there reseeding.But there are worse weeds! If they pop up where I don't want them,pull 'em up put them wher you want them.