January Pictures and Chit Chat

Here are the two plants. Happy as can be.

The only downsize to the chimeras as far as I've been told is that they do not come true from leaf cuttings. It has to be by suckers or something like that. Correct me if I'm not right.

Correct! That's the reason why they're so expensive. They only come true from crown cuttings, suckers or flower-stem-cuttings, as seen here:

http://www.violetbarn.com/lessons/blossom_stems.htm

The only Chimeras that are relatively easy to propagate true are trailers.

Roly, your violets are beautiful. I especially love the chimera,

I love all of those, especially Ethel's Reflection. You are obviously a very good grower!

My Yukako suckers a lot & I've had several 'babies' from it that have been gifted. I've a few other chimeras that don't sucker so well. I put down twenty something trailing chimera leaves a couple of yrs ago & grew them all to flower. From memory, about 6 or 7 bloomed chimera.
Jamie

Thank you all for your comments. To tell you the truth I still think that I've got a lot of learning to do. I only started growing violets last year and fell in love with the many leave, flower and color variations. I still can't propagate them but I will get the hang of them eventually...LOL. In the meantime I'll share the pics. Keep a list of which ones you like and once I start propagating them well I'll be sending you plants. I want to order some more plants for my upcoming birthday so I'll have to do a recap of what I have and what I lost last year and then I'll have a good inventory.

Oh, what I meant was that trailers, by nature, sucker much more than other types of violets and therefore, trailing Chimeras produce enough of them to successfully propagate them true without the hassle that regular Chimeras make you go through if they refuse to sucker... LOL

I agree with you, Jamie! Rolando, you should seriously consider showing your Violets!

Olaf

http://www.gesneriadsociety.org/chapters/chapters.htm

Scroll down to Florida. There are a few chapters there.

Sinningia muscicola. One little tuber, many crowns...

Sinningia pusilla. Two one year old tubers in a 2 inch pot.

So adorable Olaf. That pusila is just precious and they seem to always send bloom after bloom. I can't wait for my other 3 to bloom and my other plants to ship come spring.

Thanks, Rolando!

Yes, they are sending up flower after flower and keep making seed pod after seed pod. Also, like many other Sinningias, the tubers keep getting better cycle after cycle... :)

Olaf

Olaf, I love that sinningia pusilla. I have seeds from you germinating but pusilla and musicicola haven't germinated yet. Country Tiger F3 and Eumorpha 'Saltao' have germinated. There's more that 14 Country Tiger so far. And Saltao only two. I keep checking every day. LOL

Thanks, Eileen!

I actually haven't sown a single one of the 'Country Tiger' F3 but I'm glad to hear that they're germinating so well. :)

S. eumorpha "Saltao" usually germinates over a period of about two to three weeks once the first one gets started. That's normal. I have sown a test batch of this about three weeks ago and they're now just getting started.

I have had the micros take anywhere from 3-4 days to 3-4 weeks to germinate. They can be a little erratic in this regard.... Don't give up! They'll get there soon! :)

Olaf

Sinningia bullata. Ripening seed pod.

Sinningia cardinalis. Ripening seed pods. The one on the left is a selfing, the fatter one on the right is S. cardinalis x S. eumorpha "Saltao".

Ripening seed pod on Sinningia 'Country Bumpkin' x 'HCY's Fairy Weather'. Th cross is: Sinningia ('Country Bumpkin' x 'HCY's Fairy Weather') x bullata.

Sinningia cardinalis. Second tuber, first flower. :)

Those seed pods are irresistable, especially bullata's -- wow! you've got quite a show Olaf. I've been waiting for a Snowbird bud to open but it was just getting longer and longer, hehe:

Finally my first flower, so pure white. BTW I tried to find her parents but there wasn't much info on Snowbird. Any ideas?

Freckles is a great bloomer as usually:

Off-topic but the new January acquisition, love her rich color:

I love those seed pods. Look kinda alien. I love the color of Sinningia cardinalis. And carpathiangirl, your Snowbird is very pretty!

'Snowbird' is beautiful! There aren't that many (almost) pure withe minis and this is definitely a keeper! :)

I love the seed pods on Sinningias. They all look a little alien, some of them even look like they have eyes... LOL

Here's a seed pod with "eyes" on Sinningia eumorpha "Saltao". The "eyes" are actually nectar glands. :)

That is pretty cool looking.

Thanks, Jamie! :)

So I was going to wait until Spring for to order more plants but I couldn't. My birthday is in just a couple of weeks so I got myself a birthday gift from Rob's Violets. Now I might also need to get another 4 tier stand as the one I purchased I full already. They are all African violets as I did order Sinningias from another vendor. Here is the list. They are all Russian violets.

Amour Elite
Armageddon
Capricorn
Cosmos Legend 2
EK Cherry Blizzard
EK Scarab - New!
EK Sea Star - New!
LE Adagio - New!
LiK Nobleman - New!
Snow Edelweiss - New!

Wow! You'll have a shelf full with these plants only...

Look! A baby! :)

Sinningia speciosa 'Wendy'

Primulina/Chirita 'Deco'. This is the first peduncle that made it this far...

Wow Roly, Russians are incredibly beautiful & you have quite a collection! Olaf, is Deco tough to bloom? Mine hasn't put out any flower stalks yet and it's over 2 years old.
Jamie

Jamie: I don't know whether 'Deco' is any harder to bloom than any other of the Primulinas. The bud blast was due to my rather poor watering regimen... LOL

Olaf

Thank you Jamie. I can't wait for them to get here. They shipped today so I should be getting them tomorrow. Now from tomorrow to blooming it will be usually 2 weeks. Looking forward to the blooms !!!! And will share them here.

Roly, I have a fairly large collection of Russians myself......maybe this spring we can trade a few leaves.

Melanie