African Violet *Plant Files*

The checkbox list for pH can't be replaced with a single declarative statement?

OK.

Then it seems like resetting the value for all existing entries would be a way of clearing out the incorrect values that might lead to people killing plants.

I guess the bigger question is, do we need to:

a) Clear out everything in that section and start over?
or
b) Set all current entries to something we can agree on?
or
c) Remove the pH section altogether for AVs?

I've got a headache from reading this thread. :)

I'm not technical at all. I'm a novice at growing plants so I have no clue about PH, Spacing etc .... so, whatever you pro's decide is fine with me! If I ever have a plant to add to PF, I will have to leave most of the information blank and let the experts fill it in! I've added a few photo's even though some are not so perfect .... if they need to be deleted for a better pic that wouldn't bother me in the least. I would much rather see a professional looking picture of the plant in PF.

This "Garden" is a wonderful place with so many kind, generous people. I am so glad to be able to visit here on a daily basis. Which reminds me .... I need to renew my subscription!

My opinion on african violets for Plant Files:

*delete spacing

* I would have a normal pH range of 6.4 - 6.9 over a single dogmatic one.

My opinion on streptocarpus:

*delete spacing

*delete USDA hardiness zones

Since 6.4 to 6.9 isn't a PlantFiles option, would it work to have these two checked?

6.1 to 6.5 (mildly acidic)
6.6 to 7.5 (neutral)

I like the idea of having as many options checked and/or set as standard as possible for AV's. Like PH something similar to Snows sugeestion would work, watering,spacing...etc.
I would hope that would resolve the possible room for "errors" forever.


MsC

Part of the problem seems to be that there is no way to "set as standard" any of the details from the PF checklists.

It won't solve the possible room for errors forever, because this is a one time fix, and only on the entries already in PlantFiles. Any new entries added may or may not have the information checked off correctly.

Would this be appropriate pH for the Streps?

5.6 to 6.0 (acidic)
6.1 to 6.5 (mildly acidic)
6.6 to 7.5 (neutral)

This is what I'm hearing:

Saintpaulia

Remove Spacing Field
Reset the pH to 6.1 to 6.5 (mildly acidic) and 6.6 to 7.5 (neutral)

Streptocarpus

Remove Spacing Field
Remove zone hardiness
Reset the pH to be 5.6 to 6.0 (acidic), 6.1 to 6.5 (mildly acidic), and 6.6 to 7.5 (neutral)
Reset the Light Requirements to Light Shade and Partial to Full Shade

all I know is that 6.6 is mildly acidic.....................and not neutral.................Snow posted it all down and she knows a lot more than the rest of us....................I had a water problem of 8.6 alkalinity and she solved the problem for me by adding peat moss to my mix rather than trying to buy water or some fancy system of purifying the water..................

she has good advice for many of us 'newbies'

gessiegail, the options I posted are the ones that are available in the PlantFiles field. I'm just trying to find which ones would be the most correct.

I see.................I shouldn't be getting in on this discussion since I bought my first AV back in January or February...(LOL real hard)........................will stay out of this one............for the sake of the community...............another laugh...........

JoanJ - I am in agreement with your post #3840850

Quote:

"Saintpaulia

Remove Spacing Field
Reset the pH to 6.1 to 6.5 (mildly acidic) and 6.6 to 7.5 (neutral)

Streptocarpus

Remove Spacing Field
Remove zone hardiness
Reset the pH to be 5.6 to 6.0 (acidic), 6.1 to 6.5 (mildly acidic), and 6.6 to 7.5 (neutral)
Reset the Light Requirements to Light Shade and Partial to Full Shade"
*******************************************************************************************

This one time fix will go a long way to correct and improve the existing Plant Files for streps and violets.

Your efforts are very much appreciated...

Thank you!

I think we've come to an agreement then. :)

Excellent! That'll go a long way toward correcting some misinformation that could lead to dead plants. Thanks!!

Has anybody seen problems with lighting or watering information for AVs? Is that something that needs to be reset for all entries while we're about it?

I have a question. Can Streps be propagated by any other means than leaf cuttings? Softwood cuttings maybe? Dividing the rootball?

Edited to clarify my question. :)

This message was edited Aug 18, 2007 9:02 PM

They produce offsets. ; ) And I think someone mentioned you could propagate them using bloom stem cuttings.

Thank you. That's what I needed to know. I'm not Gesneriad grower (obviously, huh? LOL) so I didn't know, and I was having a hard time finding the correct information.

I may be making this worse, but that is why chimeras can only be reproduced by suckers......which are part of the crown.............(which is connected to the root system)...........ask Snowrose?????????????
regular avs and streps can be reproduced the same way but chimeras can only be produced as the exact plant by using part of the crown..............

So which would be more appropriate?

By dividing the rootball,
or
By dividing rhizomes, tubers, corms or bulbs (including offsets)

I knew I shouldn't have opened my mouth because I don't know the answer..........it wouldn't be rhizomes, tubers, corms or bulbs on Streps or Avs..............so sorry, JoanJ.............keep your mouth closed , Gail!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I don't know what part of the plant the crown is...............rather pathetic on my part........all I know about chimeras is to reproduce you cut the crown out and root it alone and then let the plant sucker, taking the suckers to make new babies...............

you may have to wait for snowrose..................

I thought we had added AV-specific propagation options to PF.... ?

For example "may be propagated by cuttings (leaf, sucker, or bloom stalk)" is not part of the ordinary propagation checkbox list, it's part of the AV-specific checkboxes that replaced the normal propagation checkboxes.

I clicked on a couple of entries for named cultivars and noted that "may be propagated by seed" had been checked off... that's another thing we'll need to address as we go through the entries to make corrections. Although named cultivars can produce fertile seeds (whether self pollinated or crossed), they will not come true from seed, because they are hybrids.

AVs don't really produce offsets in the "dividing the rootball" sense of the word... they do produce suckers (like little additional crowns) that can be removed and rooted... Chimera AVs won't come true from leaf cuttings and have to be reproduced by suckers or (I think) bloom stems... I'm pretty sure there's a chimera-specific choice in the propagation checklist

Joan, I don't remember where to go to see the entire list of checkboxes for AVs... can you put a link here for us please?

I don't know what all the possibilities are for streps.. I do know that they can be propagated from seeds (like AVs, the named cultivars are hybrids and won't come true from seed) and from leaf cuttings.

Yes, the Saintpaulias have their own set of propagation checkboxes, so that's not a problem.

The Streps however, have the same checkboxes as most of the rest of PlantFiles. The checkboxes aren't going to be changed for the Streps, since there's so few of them. That's why I'm trying to find the most appropriate check boxes for them.

Sorry, I might not have made myself very clear at first.

Opps, I meant to include this, but forgot. These are the options.

Propagation Methods:

By dividing the rootball
By dividing rhizomes, tubers, corms or bulbs (including offsets)
By dividing the bulb's scales
By scoring the base of the bulb to promote new bulblets
From leaf cuttings
From herbaceous stem cuttings
From woody stem cuttings
From softwood cuttings
From semi-hardwood cuttings
From hardwood cuttings
From hardwood heel cuttings
Allow cut surface to callous over before planting
From seed; direct sow outdoors in fall
From seed; winter sow in vented containers, coldframe or unheated greenhouse
From seed; stratify if sowing indoors
Direct sow as soon as the ground can be worked
From seed; sow indoors before last frost
From seed; direct sow after last frost
From seed; germinate in a damp paper towel
From seed; germinate in vitro in gelatin, agar or other medium
Scarify seed before sowing
By grafting
By budding
By simple layering
By air layering
By tip layering
By serpentine layering
By stooling or mound layering
Plant is viviparous
From spores
From bulbils

Oh, I'm sorry... I saw you mention both AVs & streps in your post above, and I didn't understand where you were trying to go with that!

I know you can propagate AVs from bloom stem cuttings, but I don't know if that is true for streps, at least not that I've ever seen.

Streps do form a clump over time, and it looks to me like they could be divided... I guess that could be "dividing the rootball."

I think we need to wait for one of the more experienced strep growers to let us know about propagation. I'll see if I can google for info, meanwhile... :-)

I hope you have better luck figuring it out than I did.

This is what I found that makes me think that dividing the rootball would be the appropriate checkbox.

I found two good links on propagating (by leaf) and dividing (by separating crowns and dividing the rootball). Hopefully this will help...

http://www.streptocarpus-info.com/streppropagation.html (leaf cuttings)

http://www.robsviolet.com/repotting_streps.htm (dividing)

Although some gesnariads do form tubers, I don't think streps are among them.

It seems like the appropriate choices might be
By dividing the rootball
From seed: sow indoors
From leaf cuttings

Those 3 are the only ones I see on that list... but as I said, I might be missing something that an experienced grower would know.

Strep propagation:

*Agree on leaf cuttings.

*From seed sown indoors, yes, except for the part about "before last frost". That makes no sense to me. They can be sown and grown indoors or a green house anytime year-round.

*By dividing the rootball. If that means "by division"...then okay.

I know there are only so many options to choose from and they mostly seem to apply to outdoor garden plants.

Continued appreciation for your efforts, JoanJ...

Thanks Snowrose. I think we picked the most appropriate for them. At this point it doesn't appear that the options are going to be changed for the Streps.

I went through all the Streps last night and hopefully now they look a little more accurate. The spacing is still going to be there, but now they should all be unchecked. We'll just have to watch, and if you notice any that do get checked, just let us know and we'll take it back off.

We're still working on what to do about the Saintpaulias.

A big pat on the back for you for all your efforts. So much better.

Next comes saintpaulias ;0)

I have been wanting to add strep pictures (new ones) to the files...........I assume it is ok to do it now..............I uploaded to the av files as I knew that even if I did something wrong, the picture would still be there............

It's always been fine to upload photos. We aren't changing the entries themselves, only the details. If you find any errors, please do let us know.

JoanJ,
That is wonderful!

I will start looking through the av Plant Files starting with my own submissions. I am glad you have the First Class 2 (MVL) software. That will help you so much in verifying the saintpaulia corrections.

Thank you! :)

It just occurred to me that I never really answered your question about how to organize this. I think going by alphabet would work great. If you all sign up for letter(s) to go through, it will be a much less daunting task. Here's the link to where they entries are broken down alphabetically if that helps. http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/finder/cultivars.php?sname=African%20Violets&choice=A

Since we're over 100 replies on this thread, it might be better to streamline this effort by making a new thread for it... Please see http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/762069/

THANKS!

That is a good idea, JoanJ. Anyone with access to the correct information (MVL) could sign up for 'letters'.

I signed up for the letter "R" on the other thread, but Snow, please go there and see my question about the First Class CD.