Oh my, that was amazingly helpful. I thank you so much. I will be studying this for a long time. I have a begonia that is 3 years old, the the older canes in the center of the plant have no sun, and have only a few leaves at the top of the cane, so there is probably a foot and a half of ugly ankles. Do I cut these back. If I find you come back to this thread, I will see if you will mind me posting a pic for you thoughts. thank you,

Yes, you can cut the oldest (ugly) canes to the ground. A new slew of canes should come up from the roots shortly.

It was about 3 years ago where I left a giant pot of mixed canes and a golden Duranta outside for Jack Frost after taking cuttings of the Duranta since I had many of the canes in other pots. Well I changed my mind in early December and pulled the pot inside the basement. Everything was dead but you never know. About March I see a cane emerge and over the weeks more and more come up. The Duranta was dead, dead, dead. The canes had the thickest stems, largest thick succulent like leaves that year so I learned that cutting back was not going to be a problem and maybe actually get prettier canes that way. I let the same pot outside this year along with many others as I don't need all the duplicates. If any survive I may plant those in the ground as they would seem to be winter hardy for our area.

Look through Brad's Begonia World as it gives excellent advice on growing begonias.

http://bradsbegoniaworld.com/

This was it in 2015 (mid October) after coming up from the ground in March

A year later (I cut almost all of them to the ground after the freeze out the year prior). So easy to start many new canes this way.

Very interesting. I really appreciate all the time and great info you shared with me here. I will end up with one or two more pots this year, and I will experiment with your tips on them. Thanks again.

I revisited this site as I remembered someone here being knowledgeable and very helpful, Hi hc mcdole(z7). Hope the summer was good to your begonia.

I hope my begonias are okay. I am in Sacramento for the national ABS Convention this past week and will fly home today. I watered heavily last Sunday so I know a lot will be wilted when I get back but hopefully not fried to a crisp.

Here are a few pix this week of the show and private gardens.

Thanks for sharing pictures! I was especially excited to see those...bubble/ UFO shaped humidity thingies? I sometimes use a very similar looking bakery sample container for propagation and would really appreciate info on where to find the ones pictured.

Party City sells salad bowls like these. Cake lids (extra large cakes you can buy at Sam's Club) are double the fun - eating lots of cake and the bonus lid. Michael's sells glass containers as well as Walmart. Hobby Lobby does too but I boycott them.

Check with Amazon as well - I don't remember the name of the strange lids at the show but hopefully someone will know.

Try vivarium as well in your search. I found one on Amazon called BioBubble that looked promising but a little pricey ($50). Aquariums work as well but can be heavy depending on how big you go.

I did a crop and a blur on this picture since it is the only one I got a fair view of the containers with the strange lids and middle piece to raise the height.

it looks like a big bottle cut off with a cap :). but it interlocks with bottom piece? so perhaps it's purpose made to build up for a taller plant?

very interesting.

Kind of like what you described. One guy on FB uses a panel of plexiglass rolled into a cylinder to make extensions between the bottom and top of his own makeshift terrariums. Necessity is the mother of invention, right? The one I showed is bought that way (I think).

Here is an exotic looking one but is close to $100.

https://www.peazz.com/products/bio-37100003?variant=6423331269

Here is a more complete store but it is in Australia.

https://www.petsouterspace.com.au/buy/Shop/Bio-Bubble/Wonder-Bubble/Betta-Kit-Wonder-Bubble/POS-WB-WONDER-BUBBLE

wow! bioBubble...very pretty. but expensive...

I found an old image from Walmart for $50. but still..for just a few little plants that's a lot.

the party salad bowls are more doable :).

You can use aquariums too but they are rectangular which uses up shelf space better than round bowls.

I don't know the price of 10 gallon aquariums today but years ago they were $10 at Walmart - I think I bought ten, had a five gallon aquarium, a 29 gallon aquarium from my daughter's salt water days, and a 120 gallon tank - my largest that sits empty today.

Large glass cookie jars with lids are nice but heavy. The Utz pretzels at Halloween are/were nice, large, lightweight containers after you got rid of the pretzels or cheeseballs.

the 29 gallon tank put to use

I rigged something usable: put plastic window film sheet around 2x1 foot HD metal shelf.

it is still open on bottom and top (though I have pots on top too, but there's some air movement. so it's not fully enclosed. but I can fully enclose too if I line top and bottom with plastic. it's a temp , but my begonias on wicks managed a 3 week vac ok, neither drying nor rotting.