African Violets and Gesneriads: Daily Photo Share and Chat - Part II, 1 by bmedel

bmedel wrote:
Diane I've been growing streps for about a year now (love, love, love) and the first I heard about them not having as long a life as an AV does was when threegardners posted that they only live about two years! Maybe she will come and help us out by telling us where she read that information. I have not found any info on their life spans myself.

At the base of each leave is where the flower stems come up from and I've gotten at least 6 stalks from each leave. I only trim a leave off at the base if I want to share it or plant it. Or if it looks really ugly. LOL

So then if the plant has several leaves they can be full of blooms. And each stalk that comes up can have several bloom heads on them. Right now I have one stalk up and there are 7 blooms coming from that one stalk! They do just keep on sending out new leaves if they are happy. I grow mine on a table in front of a window and they like it there. You can trim the ends of the leaves but as long as you don't take the base they keep right on blooming!! For me they have been a very easy plant and I'm thankful for that.

Remember that I am new to them in the past year so I'm no expert! Just going from what I've seen on my own. Here is Bristol's Ribbon Candy that is just full of blooms right now...

~Brenda

This message was edited Nov 27, 2007 10:15 AM