Will this Begonia luxurians hybrid ever send up basal growth?

[troposphere]

This is one of my favorite begonias.  'Lady Clare' is a hybrid of luxurians and scharffii. I grew it from a cutting that I took from a friend last summer. It seems very happy but I would have expected some basal shoots by now. I am certain there was at least one node in the cutting that went underground. Is it possible that the underground buds are too dormant (or nonexistent) to ever grow shoots? The cutting was woody when I took it. My options right now are to wait and see, or to transplant the plant into a deeper pot and bury some of those live buds. 

 

Is it possible to have a shrub begonia that will not send up basal shoots because there are no viable buds underground?

 

Pacifica, California

 

 

[Tracy]

On 7/25/2020 at 9:09 PM, troposphere said:

The cutting was woody when I took it. My options right now are to wait and see, or to transplant the plant into a deeper pot and bury some of those live buds. 

That is an attractive begonia.  I don't have an answer, but the other options are to get another cutting where you acquired the first one, and see if you do better without potentially harming your existing cutting.  Alternatively, you can be patient and eventually take cuttings from your own plant and try again.  Hopefully this little bump to your post will stimulate others to see it that have some experience growing begonia's from cuttings.  I haven't grown begonia's for well over a decade even though they looked great in my old garden.  All of them died off after I moved out and had a landscape maintenance company maintain that garden.  I should have brought some cuttings with me to my current home like I did with some of the succulents and bromeliads.

[troposphere]

I decided to repot the plant but i did not bury any of the green stem.  I left 3 inches of space between the soil level and the rim of the pot, so if I want to bury the green stem in the future I can just add soil.