Begonia ricinfolia "immense"
- Introduction
The Begonia ricinfolia “immense” is one of the biggest and fastest growers in the begonia family. It grows from a rhizome that normally creeps on its natural environment. It is really easy to take care of when the light conditions are great.
This plant was the plant that started my plant hobby (more about it on the plant diary below), and I so much love it. It is not common to find in on the begonia sections of the plant stores (I have never seen it!!) and I don’t really know why, because it’s a really amazing and grateful plant great for plant lovers at any level of expertise!
Let’s dig it on some of its particularities, and check up on the diary to se how mines do! 🙂
- Plant details
The Begonia ricinfolia “immense” is a big, beautiful green plant. It has bright green leaves on the surface, with a red touch on the back part. The back part and petiole is full of cute red hairs. It likes to grow over the soil and expand laterally, and it grows so nicely given the right amount of light.
- Watering
Like the rest of the plants I own, I water this one by immersion. I only water when I feel the leaves are too soft and droppy, and the pot is too light. I always prefer to have them thirsty rather than over-water. This one is not fuzzy if you leave it thirsty for a bit, even if you get it to a dramatic situation when all the leaves are down, so… don’t worry much about this one!
- Light
In my experience, this plant grows much better if it has quite a lot of light. Right now, I have it close to a south-east facing window, and it received direct light in some of its leaves for a while during the mornings, and a lot of light during the day.
It has done pretty well so far. I have only observed sun-burn when the leaves where touching the window glass.
If it has a lot of light it grows many green and thick leaves, and it stays compact. When the light is no good, the plant manages OK too, but it grows huge petioles and leaves that turn it a little hard to handle (almost like a small monstera!). So, give it good light for it to be the prettiest.
- Temperature
This plant can deal to as low as 2C Celsius if it is dry enough. It survived for years in my village without heater, which means, the house stayed below 10C for long periods of time.
- Propagation
The Begonia ricinfolia “immense” is really easy to propagate through cuttings of the stem (rhizome), directly in soil, with a part of it buried and another part on the surface.
I also tried to propagate the rhizome in water but it didn’t work. It got rot.
Another option is to propagate from a leaf cutting. It worked for me with different begonias so far. I build a changer on a 500mL plastic bottle, and prepare a medium rich in humidity (perlite, coconut fiber). Then I cut out a healthy leaf from the begonia, reduce de green surface till 3-4cm, and leave about 1cm of the petiole. I bury the petiole in the soil and set it up on the chamber. After a month or so, if the leaf didn’t rot, you will start seeing micro-leaves coming out of the center of the original leaf. It is a really amazing system. I find it a bit harder than to propagate from the rhizome, but it also works!
- Repotting & Fertiliser
Begonias usually like being tight in their pots, but if you see that they start to drop too many old leaves, maybe it is time to repot. The substract tends to compact a lot, and the plant roots loose access to nutrients and oxygen. Make sure to disrupt the root system by releasing a little bit of the root mass.
I don’r fertilise my Begonia Ricinfolia “immense” too much. Only I add a little bit of green plants fertiliser (rich in nitrogen) 1 – 2 a month in the growing season, and worm lixiviate once every month – month and a half, aslo during the growing season.
- Pests
I have had pests in other plants at home, but this begonia has never gotten any, other than a few fungus gnats.
I have read they are prone to fungal infections if they have too wet soil or if you left the stems or leaves humid for too long, but, since I water it by immersion, I hadn´t had any issues so far (fingers crossed!).
- Pets
Begonias can be toxic for animals, specially the leaves and the stems. But my cat have never been plant-eater. They rather chill in the jungle!
Plant Diary
- April 2022
- 5 cuttings recovered from a dying begonia, left in new location with universal soil.
I got 5 cuttings of an almost entirely rotten begonia plant from my grandmums house.
I remember this begonia with my grandmum since I have memory. My grandmum had it on a tall wooden plant holder on the living-room window. That window was facing north, but because there were no buildings or any other obstacle in front of that window, it used to get pretty decent indirect light during great part of the day.
A few years after my grandmum died (she passed in 2012) my parents covered that part of the balcony with a roof, so the light stopped coming through that window, and they moved the plant to the first floor of the house. That room has decent indirect light too, but it is pretty cold in winder, specially if there is no-on living on the house, so the plant was left there for years, with almost no care at all.
After I returned to Europe in November 2020, that plant seemed to be struggling holding on. The leaves were really small, and a lot of parts of the rhizome were not looking great. My dad tried to repot it, but it didn’t do much. After a half a year the plant was not recovered, and my mum mentioned it was a pity if she died, because it was a plant kept by my grandmum (her mum), for ages, so I decided to make a few cuttings of the parts that were looking not rotten and brought them to my apartment in Lugo. Some of the cuttings had small leaves and little roots, but others were just a piece of the rhizome.
I planted them in universal soil with some perlite and virmiculite, and left them on my desk, where they are getting OK light (1500 lux on cloudy days – 3000 lux on sunny days, mostly indirect light) for most of the day. I water them only when they feel dry, with tap water.
- 18 May 2022
- The cuttins grew new leaves (even the only rhizome one), and they are looking great
All the cuttings have survived and they are growing really great. They have nice green leaves and look really healthy!
- 10 June 2022
- All the plants are really grown up and looking really healthy
- 9 July 2022
- I moved the plants to bigger pots, again universal substrate with perlite & virmiculite.
- 7 August 2022
- The plants are looking huge. I started putting them in different areas of the room
The plants keep getting bigger and bigger. I have moved them to other parts of the room. You can also see how my plant collection grows 🙂
- 27 September 2022
- In some of my room locations the plants get etiolated. I move one to a different, more luminous room.
In some of my room locations the platns are growing huge leaves, but are getting etiolated. The etiolation is a phenomena that happens in the plants that are in search of more light. They grow super- long stems or pecioles and huge leaves. The etiolation is a clear sign that the plants need more light, so I move one of them to my bedroom, where I put it close to a long window with loads of light (some direct light too)
- 10 December 2022
- The plants keep growing. My home-office starts to have a jungle vibe!
The plan keeps growing even during winter. I water it only when it feels droppy and dry, and I am not adding any fertiliser since it is, in theory, no growing season. The plant in my bedroom, which has more light, grows in a different pattern: smaller leaves with many more of them, way shorter petioles, and thick stems (rhizomes). The etiolated ones start to become too big and not very easy to handle within a small office.
The upper part of the leaves of this plant is not hairy, but it does accumulate a lot of dust. Since I am afraid of washing it with water, I normally use a soft pain-brush to take off the dust.
