African Violets and Gesneriads: Blooms, buds, & seedlings, 1 by Keyring

Keyring wrote:
wow, you have been busy!

The pusilla seedlings are cute! I just sowed some more myself.

You know, I got my codonanthes as cuttings from a friend, and she had to twist my arm to take them. Turns out their water needs are perfect for me ;-) When they first started blooming, they bloomed only on and off, but now it is pretty much constant. And, the flowers are about 50% larger than my first blooms (but still smaller than the ones I saw at Strybing... hmm.....).

Cherry Pie x self seeds - I don't know, as I usually let mine dry for a week or two at least.

The Columnea - where are you growing it? I have a hard time blooming mine under lights, and I think they would do better in a window where the temps drop at night. They also take a while (a year or 3) to settle into their pots before they decide to bloom.

You could reroot pieces of the Streptocarpella to make a pretty pot. I find they root and grow very fast in the spring. Pinch and they shall branch.

Aeschynanthus are easy to root. The smallest piece you need for propagation (not that you need to know this, with a full plant like that) is a leaf attached to a piece of stem (not the part joining the stem to the leaf, but the stem itself). I usually propagate from tip cuttings (bury two nodes) or from a pair of leaves (by burying the stem between the leaves in soil). I have a small one which I'm trying to propagate, so I took a tip cutting with 4 pairs of leaves, and instead of rooting that as one, I put down the lowest two pairs individually (midde top of photo), and then the very tip (snipped off one pair of leaves and buried that node - bottom center). Once the tip has rooted and grown a couple more pairs of leaves, I will pinch off the top to promote branching.


This message was edited Apr 7, 2007 5:47 PM