Perfectly normal. As the years go by they will get even woodier.

the old canes look pretty ugly! so they won't last that long :) - i'm pruning them!

i trimmed earlier, but they refuse to branch. i cut may be half of canes to 4-6 inches , but the new canes are few and the old ones just get leggier..

i think it needs a repot - i'll remove the older canes altogether, since there's hardly any room left for new.

but at least now i know the pot can live and i don't have to worry about infecting my other starts.

it seems to me restarting them from tips and getting them to grow for a few years and then repeating the process is best for 'good looks'.

Well my post just went astray with several photos. And no way to recover! GRRR!

I will post one photo this time instead of several. I recommend you visit Brad's Begonia World or Brad's World of Begonias or something like that. Go to the pruning page and overwintering. Great tips.

Here was my last photo from the previous post I submitted. Again GRRR! These are just some of the canes I started anew in the winter of 2016-17 to get rid of the old mother canes I had for years and years. I started the tops I cut off but also kept the mother plants until I was sure the new plants would be okay. I grew these in 16 oz drinking cups to be cheap and once they reached size moved them to proper garden pots. I left the mother plants outside this past winter to see if any would survive an Atlanta winter - they didn't make it. Some might survive in the ground but I am not all that ambitious to try it.

Here is what I did to a cane that was not performing back in Jan 2017

Cut and added fresh mix to the top to hide the stumps

Further cutting and keeping the middles as well (make sure you keep any stems without leaves oriented in the proper position). You can see several middles with wood like surfaces and also see some of the same traits on the tops.

7 months (August, 2017) later after finally putting them in a proper pot. Call me lazy for waiting so long.

Mid October (about two months later) before bringing them indoors for winter (please ignore the weed growing between the pots)