Excerpt from green profit’s tropical topics, by Ellen Wells

Foliage starter material grower and distributor ForemostCo had a new product category in their TPIE booth that immediately caught my eye. The company has gotten big into begonias. Why?

Suzanne Kilgore explained that some folks within the company had always had a secret longing to offer them, and then the pandemic hit. “We had wanted to get into begonias for years, but now we had a good excuse,” she said. With seemingly everyone getting hooked on any kind of indoor plant that was available, ForemostCo was confident in bringing that new category to market.

  • Begonia bipinnatifida
  • Begonia brevirimosa
  • Begonia Crackin’ Rosie
  • Begonia Red Kiss

Their color and texture break up the monotony of shades of green and cream with slick-as-ice leaves that dominate the houseplant world. There’s a need for that, for sure. Good call, ForemostCo’s now-not-secret begonia-loving staff.

Now, the following item is not a begonia, but I couldn’t take my eyes off of it—and I wasn’t the only one, seeing the number of people queued up to take pics of it behind me.

It’s Episcia Pink Brocade. Suzanne told me it’s the epitome of a ’70s plant, and don’t even think about letting it experience temperatures below 50F. It has a minute orange flower, too. As with the aforementioned begonias, an item like Pink Brocade is a welcomed color and texture change.

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