What's the secret to beautiful begonias? I asked this to a friend recently who has the most gorgeous begonias every single year. Her answer: fish emulsion. This means you should feed your begonias with fertilizer. Since we love that begonias flower and they do flower their hearts out, that makes begonias are heavy feeders.  Since fish emulsion (5-1-1) is a low-intensity total fertilizer it's perfect for promoting large, healthy, beautiful begonias. Just feed every 3-4 weeks and follow the label directions. And remember, most begonias do best with plenty of filtered light but little or no direct hot sun. So don't fry them. At the same time, water and begonias don't play nice together in the sense that begonias can rot pretty quickly. They need a soil that's going to drain quick. They need to be in pots - like terra cotta- that breathe. Add perlite or leaf mold to your soil mix to make a very coarse, quick-draining potting mix to add more air pockets to the soil.  Then, don't forget that those air pockets mean you need to water more frequently - especially during warm weather. One thing you can also do is mist begonias. They like humidity - but too much of that can invite fungus or powdery mildew, so keep an eye on them.     Brevities #OTD  Today is the birthday of Caspar Wistar the Younger who was born on this day in 1761. His grandfather was also Caspar Wistar, so the Younger distinction helps people tell them apart. Wistar was a Professor of Anatomy at the University of Pennsylvania. The botanist Thomas Nuttall named the genus Wisteria in his honor (some people say Wistaria to reflect the proper spelling of Wistar's last name. Either is fine because guess what - the misspelling is preserved for all time under the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature). It's like one of my kid's birth certificate - it can be amended but the original is wrong and will be until the end of time. Wistar had some pretty impressive friends: his best friend was probably Thomas Jefferson and his most famous botany friend was probably Alexander von Humboldt. Wistar died of a heart ailment unexpectedly on January 18, 1818.  His final utterance was: "I wish well to all mankind." During his life, every Sunday Night, Wistar would hold a salon - an open house - at his home on the corner of Fourth and Locust Street. His friends would stop by - along with any members of academia, or the elite or high society, along with other accomplished people who happened to be in Philadelphia that evening. They all knew that Wistar's house was the place to go to meet up with the best minds of the day. When Wistar died, his friends continued holding Wistar parties for a core group of 50 members. They would each take turns hosting and the kept the tradition going for another forty years.     #OTD   Today is the birthday of the British author, Roald Dahl who was born on this day in 1916. Today, his birthday, is celebrated all over the world as Roald Dahl Day. Dahl was an avid gardener. In fact, his garden shed doubled as his writing nook where he wrote many books, including Charlie and the Chocolate factory. As romantic a notion as this sounds to a gardener's ears, it was also a pragmatic decision on the part of Dahl's wife. Dahl chain-smoked as he wrote and the garden shed kept the smoke out of the house. For Dahl's part, he loved the idea of using the garden shed as a place to write, especially after seeing the little writing hut used by the author Dylan Thomas. Gardeners with a passion for roses will no doubt praise the Roald Dahl Rose which honored Dahl's love of gardening. It's an absolutely stunning English shrub rose bred by David Austin. It's got a very blousy habit and scrumptious peach blooms that just go non-stop. They have a lovely fragrance as well - and not many thorns, so that's a bonus. Dahl's diaries have marvelous entries about his garden, and he was often inspired by his garden which you can ascertain when you read in his work. H e