African Violets and Gesneriads: Girlie Girls, 1 by begoniacrazii

begoniacrazii wrote:
Anita, I haven't been doing this long enough to really have a method with the perlite. I did have a batch that had a case of fungus gnats and some green mold growing so I put the tray in the bathtub and poured hot bleach water over the whole thing, then rinsed it for a long time. I have since just put it into a container since it still has the bleach smell. I figured it wasn't worth reusing for AV's at this point, but I may mix it for my greenhouse mix later on. I buy the big 4' tall bag that run $15 so it's pretty cheap when you use it that way. The little bags add up fast.

I leave them in the tray until I can see that they have fairly decent roots. At least 1/2", then they go into the little pots. Lately I've been using the 2 oz. portion containers (Dixie) from CostCo. There are 1200 in a box and the box is $10 - pretty cheap. I bought thumb pots and the next size up for when I separate the moms from their pups. The pots are nicer for sending to friends etc. But the Dixie's are perfect because they are squatty and dont tip the way Solo cups to. (photos shows one after rooted, this one has pups now)

What I like about this is that I always know they are 'rooted' once they are in pots. No guessing or tugging to see. I constantly lift the leaves out of the perlite to check for roots and then just pop them back in. (like obsessive compulsive about it LOL) I have been getting roots in about 2 weeks on some, others have been sitting there since January 3rd. (DP specials, must not have been the most robust of leaves!)

I water about every third day with a 1 quart watering can filled with warm water and VF-11 only. If the top looks dry, I water. When dry, the perlite looks chalky, vs. transleucent.

So far this works good for me, BUT when our weather warms up in the the triple digits, I doubt I can keep enough water in there to stay moist. I'll likely go to domes and filling the tray below with water at first. Last fall I rooted everything begonia ina 30/30/30 mix. It did fine, but as the weather cooled off, fungus gnats proliferated like crazy. So I got pre-strike for mosquitos to mix with my water. Then I just gave up and switched to perlite. My begonia Guru in SFO uses it, so I figured so can I.