The growing of tuberous begonias for Ralph started as a hobby at the age of 21, some 40 odd years later he is still captivated by these beautiful plants, and he never tires of looking at them. The first glasshouse he built was in 1961. It was thirty-Foot long. Soon after he found that he needed more space and over a few years he expanded to twelve glasshouses and 2 large shade houses for flowering plants. These were all built on our farm, which is 64 acres in size of which we now only use 2 acres for our nursery. The reason for enlarging our glasshouse space was because Ralph was a keen hybidizer, always looking for something a little different. At one stage he was growing 10,000 to 15,000 thousand plants annually which were of his own hybrids. Most of these plants went to Adelaide to the nursery Industry where his products gained high regard

Our nursery is situated on a farm amongst dairying country. We have cold wet winters and dry hot summers. Some times very hot.

We live in the Southern part of Australia, On the Flieurieu Peninsula. Which is a very popular tourist destination.

The year 2001 has brought about some changes to our business; we are now concentrating on our Willsmores hybrid named begonias, and are trying to find a small market amongst collectors overseas. So far we have a few customers in the U.k. Scotland, and America. and Belgium/ We hope to enlarge on this part of our business. And only open to the public with a display of Begonias for 4 weeks in March. As at this time the weather is kinder on the plants and on us.

In the summer months our maximum daytime temperatures can range from 20 degrees Celsius to 43 Celsius with in the same week. Making it a bit stressful on the plants and us. . And in our winter months we have frost and temperatures down to --5 degrees Celsius

Our Hybrid begonias consist of a lot of frilled edged begonias as Ralph always loved these and was unable to acquire them anywhere so he set about hybridizing, to try and achieve this. He first saw these beauties in an American magazine, and they were grown by Frank Reinelt the only pity was that when he passed on so did all trace of his begonias.

So if Ralph was ever to have some of these beauties he had to start hybridizing himself. This took some years before he achieved the standard of begonia that he was happy with, Some of the Roseform bred in our nursery are quite exquisite also, and would be amongst the best available. We also have a collection of hanging basket Begonias having three to four inch flowers of exquisite Roseform shape in just about every colour familiar with tuberous begonias

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