Hi all,

I've looked around Gardenweb re nonstops, and there's not all that much out there. I've had a little success with over-wintering, with mixed results from total failure to utter brilliance. I think the genetics of each plant determine how it's going to go, but I thought I'd share my experience here in case it helps anyone.

I'm in Z3b. I have overwintered nonstops with mixed success. Some years I seem to lose about half those I try to work with. At best, I've sometimes saved 75% of them.

There is one magnificent orange that I've kept going for at least six years. This one was, in its first season, put into an immovable planter, so that it had to be dug up for the winter. It was the *only* survivor, out of six, of that procedure: I dug it, dried it, put it in a paper bag, and planted up in the spring. I would now consider this total abuse! If one *must* dig tubers, it's essential to provide them with humidity stabilization, either in peat moss or vermiculite. I think the latter is the better choice: it's more hydrophilic. Easy to wet, and stays that way longer.

So here is what I call "True Orange." This glory is only possible because I overwintered this plant. There's no way you're going to get this from the usual little "annual" you can buy (cheaply) in the spring. So in my opinion, making the attempt to overwinter has a huge possible up side.

I have rarely seen this color in the nursery, and I value it and its reliable hardiness so much that I've made sure I have one or two "starts" of it every year, just in case: these genetics shouldn't be lost. (I gave my best baby away to my daughter last year, which turned out to be a mistake. Admiration and appreciation are no substitute for taking the time to do the fall/winter care.)

One cutting that rooted well last season, and overwintered into 2020, still looked scrawny this year in its 6" pot. I moved it up into a 10" pot, and it has bulked up considerably. I conclude that the standard advice not to over-pot begonias doesn't really apply to this type, and all of the survivors of the 2020-21 winter, now in 10" pots, will be graduated to larger containers for the future. Shoot, I'll probably move the True Orange mother plant into something even bigger in 2021. It's hanging way over the edges of this pot.

I stop fertilizing by mid-August, here in Minnesota. I have an irrigation system which hits these pots, but when temperatures start to get to where daytime highs are in the 70's and then down into the 60's, I reduce the number of irrigation days. Nonstops *love* to bloom in these cooler temperatures.

My fall procedure is to let things get really cold outside - mid-thirties, close to frost, for several nights - before bringing in my begonias, which are all in pots. They are placed in the garage and left there to dry down all the foliage and flowers (ugh this is a messy time in my garage, but worth it). By the time freezing temperatures might invade the garage, everything is pretty dried out. I remove the foliage/dried-up flowers, then take the pots into the insulated "shop" that's built into a corner of the garage. It's a small room, about 8x12, that I heat through the winter with a space heater. It's usually around 40-45°F in there; sometimes gets down into the upper 30's if it's -30° outside and the heater can't keep up, but that's rare and brief. It appears that just enough humidity is retained in the pots that the tubers neither rot nor become totally desiccated.

Around the first of February I bring the pots into the house and set them up under fluorescent lights in my basement (about 65°). This will get me flowers by mid May or June, at latest. I have only experimented once, with good success, with re-potting tubers going into their second season in my care. I intend to do this in the future with all pots that break dormancy.

I only surmise how to do this because it's what my mother did. I have no authoritative references, and every year, I lose some. Mom did too: she kept all she could, but I remember annual trips to the nursery in late winter, to select new tubers.

If anybody has had more regular success, I'd sure like to hear about it.