Some kind of Begonia, quite beautiful, looks happy.

Let's pls. wait for others as I don't grow many Begonias anymore, but I have. I also think there's a Begonia Forum nearby, you might try.

I believe there are 3 basic types of Begonias, handled somewhat differently when propagated. I believe that's a Cane type but am not sure.

Thank you for your input! I think it needs a trimming...

Existing internode length can't be changed, so if you're serious about wanting a bushy plant, you should cut the plant back to where the internodes are short, and follow Jean's advice to supply more light. Greater light intensity will reduce the length of future internodes considerably.

Pruning: After every vine has grown 2 new leaves, snip the vine immediately distal to the second leaf. The plant will then produce 2 new vines in the crotch of each of the leaves you left. When the 2 new branches grow 2 new leaves, truncate those vines as well. Keep repeating this pinching strategy until fall, then allow the plant to grow through the winter w/o pruning. At the end of May (or November if you live S of the equator), prune off ALL of the long internodes that will have occurred over winter and repot the plant. A repot is more extensive than potting up because it includes bare-rooting, root pruning, and a change of soil. Your plant is CAPABLE of living and looking healthy/attractive for many, many years if you treat the roots appropriately and offer cultural conditions the plant can show approval for. The practice of potting up ensures a slow but steady decline over time, and ignoring both potting up and and repotting ensures what would be considered rapid decline (in plant time).

Al

That looks very much like Begonia Thurstonii, which is a shrub type begonia. When you prune it, let me know if you would like to trade begonia cuttings. I lost my Thurstonii.

I'd love a piece as well should you offer cuttings; seems I'm smitten w/ your handsome plant. I could swap you some Hoya cuttings if you'd like.

I like its form as is, I'd maybe just prune the top back a bit.

Lucky you w/ the skylight (it looks like).

Thanks for all of your tips on caring for this begonia!

Jean & Tapla - I will try to find a way to get more light. Unfortunately are brick ranch sits at a South West angle and the brightest room is on the Northern side of the home. Have you ever heard of putting a mirror underneath the plant to help reflect more light on to it?

I'll try trimming it just a bit. I had one vine/stem section standing upright and it drooped over and is still doing well but changed the look of the plant. Is it true that I could lose some of its light gathering ability by trimming too many of those big leaves off at once?

This is one of my favorite plants so it sounds like I should do more research regarding proper root care.

If I wanted to proagate the clippings would I just place them in a jar of water for a couple of weeks?

Karen & Odyssey - I would love to share or swap stem cuttings. I could even ship them if it's easy enough.

Re adding more light: you can provide supplemental light with a 5000K or 6500K CFL or LED and a light fixture such as a desk lamp you can point at the plant so it doesn't blind the poor humans across the room. Just be certain the lamp is rated for the wattage of the bulb. (A 13 watt lamp can't take a 23 watt bulb.) There is a forum here called "Growing Under Lights" that might be of help, too.

(5000K is what we're used to considering a "bright daylight" bulb. 6500K is photography studio bright. The plants love it, but it absolutely needs a directional shade to protect your eyeballs.)

Thanks Sage! A nice lamp on a timer might be a great option for us. I'll start to look for ones that accept a good bulb.

Would you have the lamp on during daylight hours only?

Adding a mirror under the plant won't help much at all. Light diminishes by the square of the distance from it's source. So light falling on an object 10 ft from a light source would only receive 1/100 of the light it would receive if 1 ft from the light source. Not only that, but light can lose up to 30% of its intensity while passing through 1/8" of glass. If your mirror is 1/4" thick, it would lose significantly more than 30% because it must pass through the glass on its way to the reflective silver coating on the back of the mirror before it bounces back through the glass again, at the angle of incidence. Plus, there is a much higher concentration of reaction center proteins and chloroplasts that turn light energy into plant food on the upper side of the leaf dermis. So even if the lower leaf surface was exposed to the same photo load as the upper, the return would be many times greater from organelles on the upper leaf surface.

Al

I have mine on a timer for 13 hours (longer in winter when the light is weaker), but I have tall windows and SE/SW exposures, not a skylight. Your situation is unique enough that you might post to Growing Under Lights for specific help.

Great Dean! I have another shrub begonia and some cane begonias I could share. Yes, I root mine in a glass of water. They are super easy to root in water. Just make sure you have at least one node (with leaves removed) underwater and a few leaves left on top of the cutting.

Tapla - that's fascinating! You are a wealth of knowledge apparently and have prevented me from wasting my time. Thank you.

Sage - I will check out the Growing Under Lights forum as I think more of this needs to happen in my house un fortunately.

Odyssey - great tips for how to make more of these beautiful plants! I would love to share and if you want to message me on Facebook for mailing address (or know of a better way) just let me know. Karen same for you.

Dean,

Really is a gorgeous plant, I'd love a couple of cuttings, thx. Do you grow anything else I can swap you? You may not have enough light for Hoyas, except maybe sharing under that Sklylight. I know nothing abt growing under lights.

I checked w/ a friend, past President of the NYC Begonia Society. Having never grown B. Thurstonii herself, she didn't recognize it, but reminded me there 2000+ Begonia hybrids so that makes it a bit difficult.

For naming / lineage interest, she volunteers,

"The parents of B. 'Thurstonii' are B. metallica x B. sangria."

If you need a confirmation on ID, perhaps post these same lovely pix nearby at Begonia Forum & see what they say.

Am glad to learn these can be rooted in water, I defer to Odyssey on packing Begonia cuttings to ship, I've never done so.

I see your Message thing is engaged, when time comes, will Message you my Addy, Thx.

Hi Karen - I'll definitely trade some clippings with you. As for what you could send me, anything really. Ideally something that does well under medium light but we just moved into our home and there may be better (brighter) spots for our plants that I haven't realized yet.. so anything from you would be cool!

Also, thanks for looking into this specific identification. I'm going to contact the owner of the 'mother' plant and inform her of all the interesting stuff we've discovered now! I'm really impressed with everyone on this form!

You stated that you saw my message thing is engaged. I'm unsure what you mean by this (I'm new to this forum and posting in general). Please let me know the best way to swap addresses. I want to cut the plant in the next week or two.

Also check out these photos of the plant from which this one was derived!!

Wow what a gorgeous plant!

If you use CFL or LED light bulbs you can put much higher equivalent rated bulbs in fixtures that would normally only be able to handle lower wattage incandescent bulbs. For example a CFL (the spiral-looking type) of the same light production of 75 watts with an incandescent bulb uses around 18 watts, while a LED uses even less. I have 100 W. equivalent LED light bulbs in a lamp that can only take 40 W incandescent and can leave them on several hours a day without worrying about them getting too hot. If you can fit more than one bulb in your lamp or other fixture you can combine warm/soft white for the red/flowering spectrum (around 2200-2700 Kelvin) and the higher range 5500-6400 Kelvin for the cool/blue spectrum for vegetative growth. They are not actually red or blue like the LED grow lights you see but emit light at either end of the light spectrum. Oh, I actually thought your plant was a peperomia, something like this Burgundy Ripple. There are so many varieties it is often hard to identify them. In any case, you would prune and propagate them the same way.

Peperomia caperata

Thank you Corinne - great advice! I will look for a lamp that accepts a couple of bulbs (although I don't know if this plant flowers... I've heard most do) and maybe focus on vegetative growth end of the spectrum.

LED seems like the way to go! Now if I connect the light to a timer I'll need to figure out whether I should have the lights turned on during the day or at night. Do plants need dark at some point of each day?

Yes, plants change their metabolism while in the dark. They need sleep just like we do, they just dont sleep the same way.

Sorry Corinne, definitely NOT a Pep; tho' I recognize that handsome one (Caperata). It was my first plant in college, away from home; I was fascinated by the corrugated texture of those leaves.

Hi Dean,

The Additional photos look nice too. As to propagation, from my Begonia friend Carol, mentioned above

"it should do just fine in water or soil with a stem cutting of about six to 8 inches including several nodes. During the rooting it should have good humidity. It's a lovely plant."

About the Message thing, try to look at your Profile for Houzz, somewhere there is an option for Messages, which once enabled, lets us Message to each other. Then I could post my addy for you to mail cuttings to.