African Violets and Gesneriads: LET'S ALL GIVE allgr8dogs OUR BEST AV LEAF STARTING ADVICE , 1 by allgr8dogs

allgr8dogs wrote:
Week two - my students wanted you to know that we are being 'green' - we saved our sporks to label our leaves. I've had to explain several times that the kids can't rub the fuzzy stuff on the leaves (yow!). Each student got to pick out 3 leaves that are theirs (labeled with their name, too). This has engendered quite a bit of ownership. One student pulled one of his leaves up to see the roots and new plant - we did a probable timeline of when they can expect these things to occur, and explained that new roots are so tiny and fragile they can't be seen, yet, and that it will take more than a couple of weeks for them to flower. Some of the kids have been singing rap music to their leaves to get them to grow (I wonder if that will stunt their growth). They're all very excited, and several have told me they never realized that plants were interesting (and alive).