African Violets and Gesneriads: Basement babies have moved uptown!, 1 by critterologist

critterologist wrote:
I'm not sure who first posted the idea, but I've been trying a slightly different way of potting up leaves. Rather than just cutting the end of the stem at a slant and putting it only 1/4 to 1/2 inch into the potting soil, I've been planting more of the stem at a shallow angle. I still cut the end of the stem at a slant, but I also scrape my fingernail along the upper surface of the stem section that I'm burying, removing just enough of the outer "skin" that the surface of the stem looks a little wet where I've scraped. I think the idea is that this is like doing a much longer, extended slanted cut along which new plantlets will start.

Anyway, I believe I'm seeing more "ears" pop up in leaf pots that I've done this way. They really do come up all along the stem where I've scraped, not just from the cut bottom of the stem. I haven't done a controlled experiment, but my casual observations suggest that I should stick with this method!

Here are some leaf pots from my Big Blue noid... See the little ears popping up all across the middle of the pot? The stems of these leaves are planted shallowly and extend nearly to the opposite sides of the pot. The big leaf lower in the picture is also Big Blue, with the stem end cut & planted in my prior way. I don't think it'll end up with half as many babies per leaf as the other pot.