African Violets and Gesneriads: Going on another Field Trip! the SFO AVSA meeting!, 1 by begoniacrazii

begoniacrazii wrote:
Well, my first local AVS chapter meeting was a smashing success! I met new friends and came home with lots of tips and plants.

The meeting opened with their usual business of reading the minutes etc and then went on to a demonstration;
'Rejuvenating a violet'
Madeline brought in three violets that she proceeded to 'rejunenata'.
The first was a species, s. velutina (AVSA photo here http://www.avsa.org/Photographs/S.velutinaLrg.jpg#http://../...)
(sorry for the blurry photos, I normally try to take better shots, but a combo of things, she was moving, I had my camera set on the wrong setting)

First, Madeline removed all the outer, older leaves. (I nearly fainted until I found out that I was going to get some of these leaves to take home)
Then she removed old roots and soil, she gently 'scratched' the 'neck' with her finger, stating that it would encourage roots to form along the neck, and then repotted it, using fresh soil.

Next, she did the same with 'His Promise', (photos to follow)
Two tips I learned, 1) use a chopstick to push through the bottom of the pot to pop the plant out of the pot, gently of course.
2) Use one of those tiny pink spoons from Baskin & Robbins ice cream stores that they give you sample tastes of ice cream with to repot mini's into their tiny pots. Use it to scoop small amounts of soil.

And lastly she repotted 'Little Axel' in the same method. There was one that needed a sucker to be removed, but it was a bit too small to do that day, she said wait until it gets a bit bigger to stand on it's own.

Leaves of all three were passed around!