IDEAS WANTED: Inexpensive or self-made, small "violet" pots.

I am new here as a member and this is my first post. I am hoping I've done it all right. If not, please let me know!

My favorite thing to do with plants is do living indoor arrangements and I like the unexpected. I like to group plants with different general growing/fertilizing needs (blooming vs foliage, wetter vs drier, etc). When I was trying to come up with a way to care for their disparate needs in one arrangement I came up with the idea of burying African violet pots. I currently use small, dark "dandy" pots buried and hidden in the soil and overgrown with a covering plant to accomplish this. I can give each plant it's own fertilizer needs and I can rotate the blooming plants. This has worked wonderfully well. A resounding success!

I'd like to take it a step further and swap plants out once their blooming has waned. In this way, I could keep a fresh supply of blooms in the arrangements. Plug and play. Since they are not seen I'm happy to try to make something myself, too, but I am a bit loathe to use PVC due to chemical issues. Making them myself would make it far less expensive and easier to have multiple inserts per base.

I can provide a tax ID for wholesale ordering if need be.

Thanks for any ideas.

Are you interested in a BIG arrangement? Can it go on a wall?

Maybe this company makes something smaller to fit your needs if your arrangement can be vertical. This may be totally off the wall - I know nothing about african violets and growing needs etc., but I know these can keep the arrangements separate and have a lifetime guarantee I think.


www.woollypocket.com

Very Interesting...

Yes, it is on my 'list' of indulgences -- kind of expensive but I can think of 50 things I'd like to try with the pockets. I don't think I'd be brave enough to put indoors on a wall...but sure looks interesting.

You are right to keep the violets in pots..they bloom much better in a smaller pot than just planted in a big bowl of dirt. There are all kinds of companion plants that go with av's, lots of different things that bloom and have great leave variations. If you are using a dandy pot..are you using the base also?..wicking? Cause that is a lot going on. You can plant the violets in something less complicated that is easy to pull out to plunk in a different one. Plant in yougart cups and or fruit snack cups, etc. The fertilizing can be done when the plant is not growing in the arrangement. What other plants are your growing with them?

Welcome to our forum!


tish

Thanks for the welcome, tish. I'm still learning my way around here. I thought I'd get email notification of replies since I'm watching this thread....so I didn't think I had any. Surprise!

I decided I've been over-thinking this. (I'm prone to that. ;) ) If I put the african violets (or whatever plant) in a clay pot inside of a plastic or ceramic pot that doesn't drain, I'll have what I need to be able to swap out plants.

I hope to post a picture to show some of what I do.

Lynne

Welcome Lynne ^_^!! Now we have Lin,Lynne and Lynn on this forum LOL....and there may be others.

Lynn

A trick here is to put perlite in the bottom of the pot the plant is potted in. Then you can also put perlite in the bottom of the ceramic pot that does not drain to a height that is good to keep the plant even or just below the rim of ceramic pot. This way the water will go to the bottom and will "wick" up thru the perlite into the pot and the violet will not sit in water. I grow plants in plastic pots mostly, some ceramic. I don't use clay because I don't like how the water/fertilizer minerals leak out of clay. Some people do use clay though.

Where are you getting your plants? If you get any from lowes, HD or grocery type stores, you need to change the soil from that peat to something that will not hold so much water.

tish

Clay breathes well,but inside of a ceramic pot it would not.Salt and fertilizer buildup is a concern,unless they are leached frequently.Also rims need to be dipped in wax,covered with foil or use a leaf support to avoid petiole rot from the stems resting on the clay rim.

Hello and welcome to DG Lynne :)

You're idea is absolutely great and I would also like to suggest that besides perlite you can use very small pebbles/stones like what you find in beach sand. I bought a 2 lb bag last night and mixed it in potting mix soil for my AVs. Also The shallower you can keep the pots the happier the AVs will be in your arrangements. I don't know if that would help or hender your design but AV's do tend to like a moer shallow pot. Clay pots are great but putting the AVs in a clay pot then putting a plastic pot over it may be a problem when it comes ot watering since AVs tend not to like being watered from the top. Bottom watering is recommending so the only thing I might suggest is to make the plastic pot covers a little roomy so as to be able to remove the AV from the pot it's actually planted in so as you can pour the lukewarm water into the plastic pot cover to give the plants the watering they need. Just be sure not to over water them as that could inhibit their growth/blooming.

I top water a lot of my violets that are growing in different types of containers...Top watering just the soil is ok as long as you don't have any water in the crown. A violet will rot quickly when even a little water sits in the very top for very long. If I get any there, I take a tissue and dab it out. Water with fertilizer or minerals may leave spots on the leaves which is not attractive but will not hurt them unless sunlight cooks them. I know a lot of people mist their violets as well as water. I don't do that. Sand is interesting, I had not tried that.

I don't know if we've posted about the homemade oyama pots yet. That would be a good idea for you to try. Sort of based on the dandy pot idea but with perlite. I tried to make some different ones to experiment and told Jan about it and she tried some too. If it worked...and it did! we were going to post about it. First you would need to look up the oyama pots and see how they look, then you would understand. Get some recycles together and.. Basically, the first one, I took a fruit cup (I have a grandson, so I can save a lot of fruit cups!) - cut a circle out of the bottom and pushed in a small (1 oz?) solo cup & glued in place...you can use a coffee creamer cup or medicine cup or anything that shape. Cut some holes in the little cup so water can get in. Fill the little cup and up into the bottom of the fruit cup with perlite. Then plant your plant. Now this fruit cup will fit into a yoguart sized container (8oz is better, but most are 6 oz now). You put some water in the bottom of the yougart container , the perlite will wick up into the soil. Now you will have to do some adjusting if you made one...to get the sizes right so the top part fits good into the cup. Also your soil might need more perlite so it will not absorb too much water and stay too wet. But see, you can just plant the yougart cup base and interchange the fruitcup top. Now if you have bigger violets, you are going to have to experiment and find other containers to do this with. But that is the basic idea.

I love a group that can obsess about plant minutia right along with me. :D Thanks for all the welcome greetings.

I'd love to say that I've been focused on solving the problem I came here with, but I'd be lying. When you live where I live (5a) and you get handed temps in the mid-sixties to 70 degrees in mid-March, well, outdoor life become Big. HUGE.

I still have snow on my north wall, but this kind of weather makes us all want to run naked through the woods! :) And we are shoveling our snow out into the sun. Kicking winter to the curb MANUALLY! Reclaiming our turf!

DH has declared our clay soil dry enough to till TOMORROW. This is unheard of early, but it's been a magical week! We're using low hoops for the first time this year, too, and tomorrow they are installed.

Yes, I am enjoying the yin and yang of the passionate gardener. Inside/outside/inside/outside. No question that outside won this week.

I'll be back to the inside stuff before you know it. If only we could continue with this blissfully warm, bug free weather.

Thanks again, all.

Lynne (waves to Lin and Lynn).

Wow, that is absolutely amazing that you still have snow on the north wall of your house, but hope that Spring hits you soon even if you have to manually start to kick it out of town ;) We've also had steady temperatures of between 60 and 75 degrees the past couple of weeks ourselves and I'm in Zone 8/9 (at least I think I am..lol) It's definitely been a weird winter to say the least, but hope you're able to start getting out to work in your garden soon.

I also wanted to come back and post the pictures I took of the gravelly "sand" that I mixed into the soil I planted my AVs in when I repotted them the other day. My one AV was in a pot that was WAY too big for her and the other was in a 3 1/2 inch flimsy plastic pot that she was purchased in and I wanted to replant her due her outtermost leaves were only about an 1/8th of an inch from the inside rim of the pot where they connect to the base of the plant itself. I mix these pebbles in the soil at about the same ratio that you would mix perlite into the soil for them maybe a tiny bit less.

This message was edited Mar 20, 2010 10:53 PM

Here is a picture of the soil mixture that I made with the "beach sand" to me their pebbles as we do not have rocky sand beaches here in Florida...lol

Wow,Lynne!! It was almost 70 degrees here Thursday.Friday,we had howling winds and 2-3 inches of snow,with temps at 30.This week will be in the 50's,maybe even 60's,but we have flooding in some areas from snow melt.I can't go outside without sinking in the mud.I am zone 5 too LOL.

Lynn

Oh,if I remember when I get home I will post a picture of the homemade Oyama pots like Jan and Tish make.