I just love these beautiful, velvety plants so, despite the fact that I can't grow them, I keep on buying! I buy my gloxinias in bloom, healthy and with several unopened buds. When I get them home, sometimes the buds just drop off and sometimes a few open. Within weeks they Invariably start a slow decline. I realize they need a resting period, but I am not sure if I am doing that correctly either. Can someone PLEASE give me some tips on how to get my gloxinias to flourish. I also need instructions on how to provide proper resting period. Thanks so much! Liz K.
Need help with Gloxinia Sinningia
I hope somebody can help, because I've been wondering the same thing! I have some seedlings I started that aren't doing much of anything, either.
I haven't grown them for extended periods of time, so take my comments with a grain or two of salt. I've grown a few batches from seed, and give them away when they first bloom. Sometimes this can be as small as in a 2" pot, but other times I actually pot them up and they are in 6" pots before they bloom.
I pot them in very loose mix and allow them to dry out (almost completely) between waterings. However, when buds are forming or they are in bloom, I only let them dry slightly between waterings because otherwise the buds will dry up.
Because my mix is so fast draining, I water every 4 days or so. I tried them in a mix that retained moisture for longer, but found they didn't like it much. I feed lightly, give them humidity, and about as much light as the high-end of an AV (ie, light that would get you a ton of AV blooms, but no wrinkled crowns).
I haven't noticed that they rest when grown indoors under lights. (No doubt if temps dropped to the 40s they would go dormant.)
If you've got one that is past a bloom flush and looks unhappy, I would unpot, check the roots for root rot (I have a very technical way of doing this - I sniff), carefully check the tuber (should be firm and plump) and go from there.
Going back to growing them from seed, I've found that tuber development is influenced by pot size. Again, very scientific here ;-)
The ones I pot up as they grow (e.g, the potting mix is dry within 12 hrs of watering) develop massive root systems and tiny tubers. They won't bloom until they are big. The ones that are left in 2" pots develop huge tubers and start blooming when small.
Presumably there's a happy middle ground where an extensive root system feeds the tubers and blooms.... but I've yet to find it.
Often in the spring, or if your first growth didn't get enough light, you have a scraggly looking growth on the plant. If there are tiny green dots on the tuber, then you can cut the scraggly growth off, and nice new ones will sprout from the tuber.
Thanks very much, Keyring! I will play around with my seedlings & see what I can figure out. They haven't had a chance to dry out much between waterings outside, but they've certainly had sun & humidity! :-)
Maybe somebody else will have tips on how to keep the one going that we bring home from the store?
Thanks, Keyring. Lot's of great pointers in your reply. I can see that I am doing quite a few things wrong. I, too, will play with them and hope for better results. Cheers! Liz
I, too, seemed to be killing mine. Finally I got some that started regrowth and I soon noticed they were getting very leggy. They finally ended up on the ledge of an East facing bathroom (obscured glass) window. They are now blooming gangbusters. I put mine in AV self watering pots and they seem to like it. In the photo, the AV lives down a bit lower, out of the direct morning sun. I just put it up on the ledge to show the type of pot it is in. Both pots water from below.
Well, No big surprise to me but,I killed both of my beauties and in short order too!:(
I have saved them and will try to restart them over and I think I will put them in a self watering pot.
When I brouht mine home they quickly lost all their buds and dropped their flowers and it was only a matter of a few days before they looked horrible .
I'll give them another go and see if I can have the same luck PotEmUp is having. Yours sure look beautiful!
MsC
Thanks PotmeUp. I will try the self-watering pots, too. One of mine is very leggy. I will change the location and hope for the best. I guess they need to be fed with African violet food. Awesome Plants there PotemUp. Keep doing what you are doing--the plant is beautiful. Do you give it a rest? How...in the container or in perlite or peat? For how long? Thanks again. Liz k.
My two cents:
My grandmother is an avid, award winning grower of these (and epicia's, AV's, chirita's, petrocosmeas, etc.) sorts of plants. She recently gave me a Sinningia in a 2" pot. It is at least twice as tall as its' pot... true to an AV grower keeping everything in a smallish pot ;). It has a tuber about 1 inch in diameter. It blooms nicely, though not all the time. She told me to not "worry when it dies down." She said that it'd all die down whenever it was ready to rest and that I oughta just put it in a baggie with some moist spaghnum moss while it rests. I can't remember the rest because I figured I'll just ask her when the time rolls around. The instructions for "bringing it back to life", I mean. But she would certainly know what she's talking about with the tuber resting and all. Maybe the "dead" plants are just resting? I don't know... as I said, just my 2c :)
Sarah