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

begoniacrazii wrote:
I do Anita, and once they put out about 1/2" of roots, I transfer them to solo cups or most recently, I purchased the 2oz. plastic dixie portion cups from Costco (1200 for $10) So far, this method is working for me. BUT might not work for everyone's environment.

I started with a 30/30/30 mix of perlite, vermiculite and soilless mix but found myself overwatering my leaves (that Allison sent me) to death. Then in September, I went to Strybing Arboretum and my begonia guru was rooting in 100% perlite on a heating tray. Only at the time, the heat was off to their greenhouse and no word of it being fixed. So I decided to give it a try. I poked a lot of holes in the trays and found that I can't overwater. I water when the top starts to look dry. Sometimes this is every third or fourth day. So far so good. When I move them to the dixies, I now use a 60% perlite mix, with no vermiculite. AND when I move them over, there's no question as to weather they have roots or not. I know they do.
(But trust me, I pull leaves out of the perlite like every day checking for roots - like an obsessed mother hen!, and I get roots fast, in about two weeks.)

Be careful if you're thinking of trying it. I have had amazing results, very little rot or loss, I do this for almost all my plants now (Critter, I have a heliotrope cutting I just stuck in for you, hope it makes it) but I posted this to the hoya forum and others tried it with mixed results. So everyone's environment works just a bit different. It might dry out too fast for people with a warm house or something. I don't have anything for heat except a little space heater. So it doesn't get too warm in my bedroom or playhouse. Mine are on heating mats with a thermostat, kept at 72º

Here's two that had ears pop up in what seemed like overnight. left is a noid and right is Royal Wasp from Allison.

(I have a total of 5 trays like the three above)

ed. for spelling

This message was edited Feb 7, 2006 4:55 PM