I wish I had a better pic of this one...
I've just started collecting AV's, and this is my most recent purchase.
Just sharing...
Lovely! Your leaves look so nice and clean and healthy, too!
Beautiful! I love those delicate blooms held high like a bouquet! That's a very pretty deeper purple one blooming behind it, also.
Hi Candace ! Welcome to our wonderful African Violets and Gesneriads forum ! Nice to meet you.
Your African violet it so pretty ! African violets are so much fun to grow and share.Have you tried growing by leaf ? That's the best . Each new baby excited me.
This is a nice group of addicts and all willing to help and share !
Thanks for sharing your pretty plant.
Thanks everyone!
Snowrose and Critterologist: This one was a lucky find. The plant store had just gotten in a new shipment that day. The darker one behind this one in the pic came the same store a couple of weeks ago, and just keeps on flowering.
Violet_Treasure: Thanks for the welcome! I have six AV's now, three are flowering and three finished flowering a couple of months ago. All have new growth and look like they may start putting out flowers soon.
I have tried several times to grow from leaf, but have failed. I tried using seed starter soil, then AV soil, then just perlite, and each time the leaf dies. Any suggestions for making that work?
I have grown thousands and thousands of babies. I think I can do it in my sleep/
I can help you grow babies by leaf it's easy and fun to grow and then you can share and trade !
I'll Dmail you later my way. I have tried everyway possible there is to progate Av's by leaf. Each method worked well for me but now I use the most simple way and 99.9 I always get lot's of babies and so do the people I help !
There's a good step by step tutorial (with pcitures!) on propagating from leaf at Rob's Violet Barn, www.robsviolet.com. I have good luck using a light soil mix (half perlite, half potting mix such as Pro Mix) and using a higher humidity environment. I know Allison doesn't cover her leaves, because FL humidity is more than sufficient without covering. But I have the best luck using a plastic lid with a few holes for ventilation. This lets me keep the potting mix just barely damp, and the humidity supports the leaves until they have good roots. You want enough water inside that there's just a puff of mist on the inside of the lid... if you're seeing lots of droplets of condensation, it's too wet. Lately, I've gone to using plastic take-out containers with holes in the top and in the bottom (for watering).
Here are some leaves put down in a salad container with about an inch of moist potting mix firmly packed into the bottom:
Here's the same container with the lid closed. See the little bit of "mist" inside the lid? Perfect! I just label the top of the container with the variety names.
Candace101 - Looks like you are off to a great start. They are so beautiful. I can't imagine life without violets....and streps....and.....and....;o) So many gorgeous ones to choose from these days.
Candace101 - Also, rachelsreflections.com is a great site with a wealth of information you are sure to enjoy.
Check out my "Summer Babies" thread for pictures of plantlets in these containers!
And be sure to LMK if there are any you'd especially like.... we don't have to have a trade figured out before I start a wish list for you, and I'm willing to send leaves for postage too, although many of my plants are still pretty small, so not all have "extra" leaves.
Welcome to the AV & Gessie forum. We have a lot of fun here! Hmmm, should I warn you that AVs can be addictive? :-) Nah! You'll find that out soon enough, LOL, especially once you start growing them by leaf.
Hi Critter,
I use any container I can find like that as well! Thank you for sharing this!
Joanne
It's just a faster way to stick a bunch of leaves than putting them into individual labeled cups and then trying to fit those cups into some sort of high humidity environment... I acually got a big stack of these containers to use for winter sowing, and then I realized they would probably work really well for AVs too! I've found I can stack these containers 3 high on my light shelf. They're designed to fit together to make a sturdy stack, and if I rotate them each time I water everyone seems to get enough light.