I got this AV about 1 1/2 weeks ago and it looked like this. The only thing I've done is set it so the right side is towards a window. It does set under lights. The little cup it's in is 2".
SusanGA, does this look like yours?
What would yal do to fix it?
Debbie
This pic is looking at the left side. It looks like there's 3 crowns(?) growing but they're up high instead of low.
Please correct my terms. I have only had AV for a couple months and this is my first trailer. It was given to me.
Debbie
This is lookin at the right side .
And this last one if looking from the front under the leaves.
Hi baja...
If that was my plant, I would re-pot it removing the excess soil (as I look at your last pic directly on the right of the rootball) for the purpose of being able to center the plant in it's new pot. Remove any damaged leaves as they never improve lol.
It looks as if you wick water (that's what I do as well). What soil mix do you use?
The common mix is:
1 part peat based soiless mix purchased in bags such as ProMix, Sunshine, Scotts for AV's, etc
1 part perlite
1 part vermiculite
This is referred to as a 1-1-1 mix
The ratio I use is 1-2-1 (I call this my 'wick' mix)
I would start there baja. You will see your plant will look better right away just being centered properly in the pot. Then you can keep it up by giving your plant a 1/4 turn every day or two to promote and maintain symmetry. I hope this helps some. Any more qustions? Feel free to ask away.
I agree... if you repot it, you can center it and also tilt the rootball so the plant is more upright and balanced.... don't be afraid to bury some stem...
Snowrose, I don't know what the mix is. I didn't pot or wick it. It came that way a little over a week ago. I was gonna put it in a self watering pot, but may hold off on that. Should I remove all the long stemmed leaves?
What about all the crowns(?) on the left side? Are those new crowns?
Critter, I was thinkin maybe some of that stem should be buried.
Never mind on the mix then...
I would remove those marred leaves for sure and repot centered. Then let's take a look. I do see new crowns forming...that's good! Maybe let's let them grow out some and then remove the leaves with the long petioles.
How about just do the repotting and grooming of damaged leaves for now. OK? Post a pic when you're done and we'll go from there. Should look so much better after that.
Snowrose, I made my mix. It's 1part coir, 1part Shultz AV Mix, 2parts perlite, .5part vermiculite and a T of bonemeal in about 4.5 cups of mix.
Now, yal don't laugh at me!! I took a pic of the mix cause it looks to me like it has too much perlite. I'll let you experts be the judge.
Anyway, I'm gonna pot it up this afternoon, making sure it centered and straight, covering up the neck and cutting off damaged leaves.
Here's my mix pic! LOL
Debbie
Debbie, there was an article in a recent AVSA magazine -- no coir for AV mixes! It seems there are salts in it or something which are fine for most plants but will cause problems (stunted crowns etc.) over time with AVs.
Half Schultz AV mix and half perlite will work just fine. The half part of vermiculite would be OK too, but I've gone away from using it because it seems to vary (bag to bag) in how much water it holds.
Hi baja,
Have you been using coir for a while? How do you like it? Do you have soft water in your area? I don't think that's too much perlite.....
Looking forward to seeing your plant all set and centered in it's new pot and ready to grow!
A little more perlite or a little less is just fine, and with the vermiculite and coir in your mix above I'd say that looks like just the right amount of perlite. I didn't mean to imply that you needed less perlite, but rather that you possibly shouldn't include the coir.
critter, from what I've read the salt isn't good for any plants and if you get coir from Shri Lanka(spelling) you won't have the salt problem. Mine is from there, but I rinse it very well anyway.
Snow, I love the coir!! It's really light and fluffy, but what I like best is if it dries out it rewets very easy. I have a few B. Ficas trees that I potted in ProMix and it takes an act of God to get water to sink in. In fact I have a huge Saga Palm that was potted in ProMix and it was outside in the open when we got 2" of rain and I unpotted it a few days later and it was dry as a bone in there. He's been in a coir mix for a couple months. I haven't had any plants die in it yet, but it's not been really long enough, but everything I've used it on still looks fine.
My water is pretty hard.
OK, sounds like you're on top of the potential drawbacks to using coir -- I'd say your mix is fine!
If you have it on hand, a bit of activated charcoal can be good to add to the mix or to the bottom of a self-watering pot... I've been doing that since I read a suggestion about it, but I can't say I had any problems with keeping the soil sweet before I started adding it, so... ;-)
Hi Baja,
The reason I was asking you about whether your water was soft or not was because I was thinking about the whole 'ph' thing in relationship to potting mixes. I have hard well water which means there is dissolved limestone in my water. So, I like to use a mix that is slightly acid and which is what violets prefer. Even though peat based mix breaks down and can become more acidic over time, the lime in my water helps keep the ph OK.
I was reading about coir and it seems the ph is neutral, at least some of what's available is. I will copy and paste this quote about Sri Lanka coir which has also been washed to remove salt content -
******************************************************************************************************************************
"Coir is granular particles extracted from the Coconut husk. Once the ripe coconuts are harvested they are split and the inner kernel is extracted for getting Coconut oil or Coconut milk. The shell and the pith that covers it is dried and then broken down to extract the fiber to make Coir. It is composed of organic particles which have a spongy texture and a high water absorption and retention rate. Another important character of this material is that it is chemically neutral and serves as a perfect growth medium because any type of fertilizer can be added depending on the requirements of the crop to be grown.
Coir is pH neutral. Our coir has been repeatedly washed during the processing cycle to remove any salt that is found in many coir types. Our Coir is premium grade Coir from Sri Lanka. "
*****************************************************************************************************************************
So, since it is neutral, I would add some peat to bring the ph down just a little for me with my hard (alkaline) water. I understand coir doesn't break down over time as readily as peat does either.
I would like to give coir a try as an experiment to see how it does. I am very happy with my current methods though as all seems to be going just fine with my conditions. I would try it on something that wouldn't upset me if my experiment failed.
Here is a link discussing ph - I hope this link works, if not, I will try again.
http://www.avsa.org/AVMFiles/pH%20RxForHealthyPlants.pdf.
Always interesting and fun, baja, talking about and discovering what others do as far as growing their violets, gesneriads and plants in general. Looking forward to your updates!
Snow
Nope on that link...let's see if this works
http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:BC09asX-aesJ:www.avsa.org/AVMFiles/pH%2520RxForHealthyPlants.pdf+african+violet+ph&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=6
If the page doesn't come up, click on refresh...
This message was edited Dec 8, 2006 12:58 PM
Snowrose, I haven't had time to check out your link yet, but I will tomorrow. Do you think the peat in the AV Mix I mixed in is enough to bring the PH down? What do you use in your mix your happy with?
Well, here's my repotted pics from all 4 sides. If this poor plant dies we won't know if it the coir or from being torchured. Since the little cup she was in was taller than the squatty pot I put her in, I cut off an inch or more of the roots. Was also wanting to cover her neck up too. Should she go in a plastic bag since I cut off roots? There was probably an inch left. I didn't take a pic of that.
Debbie
Next
Now I'm having pic posting problems. I'll try the rest later. I have to get to bed!!
Why are some of the leaves curling under? I meant to ask that when I started the thread, but forgot.
I didn't scroll back up, but I think you said you mixed your coir with potting mix half and half. That should do fine I would think. If there are any other leaves that bother you like the curled under ones...take them off. You can use them to propagate more plants if you want. Now that your plant has been repotted all should grow well. Sure, covering with a clear plastic baggie would be helpful.
I don't know why the leaves are curling under. With good growing conditions now, the new growth should take off and before long, you can remove more of the old leaves you don't like. Your plant looks so much better already.
I love your pot by the way!
Nicely done! Yes, if you cut off roots, a little extra humidity can be helpful, but the important thing is not to overwater until the roots have caught up with their new space... barely moist is better than soggy.
Lovely little plant in a wonderful pot!!
Another question. I put water in the outter pot but it didn't soak up any water. So I checked the soil with a moisture meter and sure enough it was dry so I watered a little from the top. This was after 24 hours. It should've soaked up water by then?? I soaked the inner pot before planting in it.
Gonna try the rest of the pics now. Thanks for yals help!!
Debbie
It's working now!!
I'll put her in a bag till she starts putting on more growth.
Probably needed to moisten your soil some in the pot to get the capillary action going. Happy growing and let us know how things go for you....
Just watch your plant does not get too much moisture and rot. I've never had to cover anything but I don't think you want the foliage to touch the plastic.
Good fun luck growing :))
Right... If you use a plastic bag, put a couple of straws or skewers into the pot to hold the plastic up away from the foliage. A little slit or two for ventilation doesn't hurt, either.
Florida has the humidity that AVs love, so covering plants or leaves to provide additional humidity can lead to rot in that climate... but covering works very well for most of us in other locations! :-)
Right...some people even grow violets in terrariums.
Thanks for the advice. I can't deside whether to put her in plastic or not. The humidity in my plant room is 50%. I guess as long as I ventilated it, it wouldn't hurt anything.
Snow, I keep going back and lookin at your Blueberries 'n Cream. Soooooo pretty!! How big is he?
Oh yea, the new mix I potted with was moist, the inner pot had been soakin for hours, but the AV was a little on the dry side, so I thought the pot would do the watering for me. Got any self-watering pot secrets?
Debbie
Debbie....the Blueberries 'n' Cream plant itself was about 6" across....miniature trailer. In time they can grow much larger as they increase with more and more crowns. Mine is still a young plant. I removed some leaves and put them down to root. I do like this trailer.
I am not a good one to ask about self watering pots. I wick water everything using the constant feed method. Someone else should be able to help you with some good tips better than I can on these attractive pots. Maybe start a new thread on self watering pots. I know many people use them and love them.
If you newly potted plant is nice and perky, you may not need to bag it. You have sufficient humidity in your growing area sounds like.
Some self watering pots seem to let too much water through, so it may be best to only submerge the bottom 1/2 inch or so of the inner pot (if you put it into the reservoir pot and then pull it out again, you can see where the water line is). I think I read an article in AVSA magazine where somebody was saying that you shouldn't even let the water in the reservoir touch the inner pot, that the only purpose of the reservoir was to provide humidity, but that doesn't sound useful to me. If the mix in the pot gets too dry, the wicking action will stop, so sometimes you need to do a little top watering of the inner pot to get it going again.
Some of my AVs really love a self-watering pot, and others hate them, so you may have to do a little trial & error repotting....
It also depends what their made of and how they are made some pots allow too much water some do not asorb enough. Some might need to be wet to get them started. Here in Florida when I first started growing I bought tons of them. Still have a few I did not give away but I just sit the plastic pot in for decor as I never had luck with them.
I was either finding them too dry or too wet many times too wet and losing a favorite plant fast :((
I know several people on this forum use them with great sucess ! Maybe they can come and help you.
