Last summer, I bought a few begonias to add some color to a front garden. I thought of it as an experiment, and treated them as annuals.

To my great surprise, 2 of them survived the central CT winter and came back this year. One of them has become somewhat of a prodigy. (A picture, with my size 9 1/2 shoe for scale, can be found at http://web.mac.com/stevenhorst/Site/Begonia.html.)

I'm starting to think this plant is worth preserving and propagating, and am wondering whether I should hope for it to survive a second winter in place or try the techniques for wintering in my basement. (As a first-time experiment, I would guess that my odds are probably no better than those of letting nature take its course.)