For some reason, I had a particularly good year with my begonias.

I like to mix up bright orange and fire-engine red ones.

And up close:

Usually I save my begonias from year to year, but I let them go too long last fall in an outdoor pot and lost them to a sudden deep frost. So I bought all new ones in May.

They kept going right up to November, until I finally cut them back before a big frost could get to them. Here they were at the end of the season.

Most people treat tuberous begonias as outdoor annuals, but it’s really easy to dig them up after a light frost blackens the leaves or just before a really deep frost. Or you can bring them indoors for the winter as houseplants.

Just cut back all the foliage and pull up the plant.

Bring them indoors and let them dry out for a week or so. At this point, you can cut back the roots and just save the actual tubers, but I simply throw all of the root balls into a brown paper grocery bag and leave it in the basement for the winter.

Tuberous begonias are very slow to get going in spring, so try to remember to pot them up a good 6 to 8 weeks before moving them outdoors in mid to late May.

My friend Suki has great yellow begonias.

She puts them in hanging pots on her front porch and they look great all summer.

It’s a struggle sometimes in May to get the colors you want, so I convinced her this year (I think) to save these great yellow ones.

I thought begonias would get really droopy in hanging pots, but these ones did just fine.

Want to save your geraniums, too? Here’s an earlier post on that.