I would love to know what is your favorite mini-me? Or...favorite semi-mini-me? After a little over a year of growing I seem to be gravitating towards the little ones and would love to hear about what you think is the prettiest and why. My favorites so far are the varieties from Rob. I would especially like to hear about old vintage minis or semis. Tag...you are it!
Pat M.
What is your favorite mini or semi mini?
Hi Pat;
Thats to hard to choose, as there are usually several i like alot. 1 being opt. rose quartz, it behaves so beautifully & is almost always in bloom. Also little moonstone i like alot to, then there is baby moonbeams, i think is so cute, tiny foliage & little flowers, i could go on & on. lol
mrsbonnie
My very favorite is Trail Along. Always blooming for me, I love the pale pink color and the shape of the petals, thin and pointy and lots of them, a very double double.
I bought Always Pink because someone posted a picture of theirs and it was pink bells and said to always bloom, mine hasn't bloomed at all and its been months! ...so I have to say at the moment its my Least fav., ha.
tish
Those are all very pretty. I had never heard of those! I had fun this year using the minis in my first landscape garden for my first AV show. They seem to bloom better for me than the standards, but I don't know why. I have a lot of trouble with the big ones.
Pat
I have more trouble with the smaller ones wanting to sucker too much, hard for me to keep up, but the smaller ones have the advantage of taking up less space, so more violets per-shelf. But the bigger ones have their charms with large flower clusters and the beautiful leaf varigation on a big scale. I have some of each.
tish
That is one think I find a bit confusing, suckers. I know you are not supposed to have suckers on your plants but trailers have more than 1 crown and aren't those just kind of suckers or am I completely mixed up.
Pat
That would be a great question for avsa, Pat.
The regular violet's growth habit is to be one crown and a rosette shape. Suckers distort this shape, take energy from the plant. If you've ever had two or more crowns on a regular violet you know it tries to chock itself out and will stop blooming...its putting energy into too many leaves to have much left to bloom. That said, some do. I had a "tri-plant" for many years, it was neat looking and it bloomed,...until it just went all limp one day and wouln't revive and died.
From what I think I know...Trailers have been created from violet species that have trailing tendencies. They have a different growth habit. And yes you would call multi-crowned suckers. This growth habit gives room for the suckers to grow and bloom and root system to support it without saping strengh because of multi crowns. I guess its in the plants genetics.
Maybe someone else has read something else about this.
tish