Advice on Begonia's

Hi,

I have quite a few begonia's growing in my front border which were planted this year.
I saw on an old edition of gardeners world this week that you need to take off the female buds when they appear and let the male buds grow.
How can I tell the difference between a male and female (no jokes please!).
Alan T said the female buds are smaller, but when the males are just coming out, they are surely the same size. I don't want to take off the wrong buds by mistake.

Cheers

 

Oh eck.

I just plant them outdoors in the summer and leave them??

 

Yeah, but apparently, if you take off the female buds, the male buds are bigger and more frequent

 

They are the smaller buds on each side, they come in threes, the middle one is usually double. You don't have to take them off, you will get more colour by leaving them on.

 

Thanks SL. Will leave them on.

 

Jee, luckily I never knew that begonias were such a sexy and complicated plant,so I was able to just plant them and let themn do their thing without any further worry! :D