African Violet Basic Care Page 5

Don Geiss' Experimenting with Plants

EXPERIMENTING WITH PLANTS

Part of the fun and part of the necessary care of African Violets is trying out new ideas in the process of raising them. Often messages through the VR egroup question why plants are growing with long skinny stems or why wicks do not seem to be drawing up water or they are drawing up too much water. These problems may or not be answerable by a host. They may take a stab at the correct solution but they may also highlight the need for the individual to experiment.

In the long stem example it could be that a windowsill location for the plant is causing it to fight for light and thus be as described. On the other hand it could be that the fault lies with a plant grown under artificial light where it is closely crowded by other plants. There could be other answers but the secret is to change the location of one or two plants that are showing the symptoms (Assuming the reader has more than one plant.) If plants are not normally grown under artificial light, it might be a good idea to experiment with a plant by placing it under a table lamp. It will serve for an artificial light as long as the light is around 18 inches from the top of the plant and burns for about 12 hours per day.

The example of the over or under watering with a wick can also be the subject of lots of xperimentation. Of course if the reader is using acrylic yarn it might be a good idea to try a plant or two with another type of wick. That could be nylon cord or old pantyhose strips. It might be worthwhile to use a smaller acrylic yarn say from four ply to two ply. Do not be satisfied with simply trying out different wicks because there can be other reasons for too much water or even too little water. The nonsoil mix can be a major factor and should certainly be the subject of experimentation.

A soil type that is almost exclusively made up of sphagnum moss may be holding too much water. On the other hand a nonsoil mix that is heavy to ground up materials such as bark and moss may dry out too quickly because there is no water holding material added such as vermiculite.

Many have told us that they use a certain type of soil and none other. There again part of the fun of raising plants is to obtain where possible a different mix from someone else and try a few starter plants in that. Where does one get all of these plants if only one or two can be found in the house. It is easy to take a leaf or two from those existing plants and start some babies. Have a few on hand if for nothing else than running experiments. They do not take much room and can simply be thrown away once they have served a function. Those same leaves can be and in reality are the source of experimenting from the very beginning. If the person has not tried setting leaves and raising babies, that in itself lends itself to fun. Once the baby plants are showing, the proper time to split and pot them is also a trial and error matter.

Insect control is the one situation where experimentation is only valid under the advice of an expert. It can be too dangerous to spray with any given insecticide without paying strict attention to the instructions that come with the material. Even better is the consultation with a person known to be an authority on insecticides used on houseplants. There can be an element of experimentation, however, by using Natural pest control. A recommended control of thrips, for instance, is thrips predator mites. Other natural enemies of insects that commonly attack African Violets are available and certainly worth an experiment.

A person is never too much of an expert with growing the plants to stop experimenting. We continue to try other things. Recently a mix that we have used for many years was changed to include coire. While the company continued to manufacture the nonsoil mix without coire as well it was worthwhile to try the new mix on some plants. That soil worked as well as the original we found. Presently we have been trying to start plants from two leaves taken from the same plant and same row. One of them will be started in a nonsoil mix while the other will be started in water. Once the one started in water has well developed roots we will plant it in a nonsoil mix but in a transparent pot so that we can observe what happens to the roots. We really do not need this experiment but as was mentioned at the beginning of this piece it is a lot of fun.

Who's Right

After looking closely at the messages as they are shown on the VR egroup message board it is apparent that there is much room for thought about them.

The first item that caught our eye is the number of people who advocate covering starter leaves and even sick looking plants with plastic. In affect that makes those leaves and plants into a terrarium. It keeps the material in which the specimens are planted very moist. A number of people have reported that they do not have success with this method while perhaps an equal number do feel it is an excellent treatment. It certainly shows that there are many different ways of caring for plants. Remember though that even if a person recommends that method, it may succeed in that part of the country or in that person's home conditions. As we have often said,"Try it with a limited number of leaves or plants". If it does not work not too much is lost.

The subject of mailing leaves and starter plants is another question that often arises. The system of wetting the leaves and placing them in zip-loc bags has been found to work well. Some people, including the writer, send starter plants wrapped in wet paper towel pieces and then covered with aluminum foil. It seems to work well and provides that extra dampness time if the mail is late. We also insulate the shipping boxes because the temperature in our part of the country is very uncertain and the insulation gets the material shipped through the cold parts of the state. The leaf stems are always cut at an angle because it is our belief that more plantlets are grown from a stem cut that way.

Our friend Jim Eyerdom, who was the former owner of Granger Gardens, always recommended that a person automatically spray any leaves they receive. He pointed out that many insects are so small that a microscope was needed to see them. He also suggested that if there was an infestation of cyclamen mites that it might be wise to keep a couple of leaves and spray them thoroughly and then throw away the plant. Dr. Charles Cole once pointed out that a plant hit with mites could eventually recover itself because the insect eats its way out of house and home.

We must emphasize that each plant under that system must be isolated from any other. It could also be pointed out that if a leaf were put down from the plant at the same time it was set apart for recovery they would both be ready to flower at about the same time. It might even be that the leaf would have yielded babies and they in turn would have matured faster than the mature plant could recover. We do not, however, recommend that a person experiment with that idea because giving a plant cyclamen mites might not be a very good experiment.

Now comes the subject of purchasing plants from a source that does not concern itself with having names of the individual African Violets. They are attractive but if you ever intend to really have a named collection they should be avoided. For many individuals the name is not important and that is great . The majority of people who have AV's are just happy to have a lovely plant. On the other hand if you purchase an unnamed plant and then try to identify it so you can give it a known name you may well be wrong. There are so many thousands of AV's today that many are almost identical. The named brands as the ads say "may cost a little more" but they are accurate as to the name if that is important to the reader.

Annually the Optimara Company puts out a color poster of their plants. For those who do not use the First Class computer program, the poster is a good way to identify certain colors on plants and thus to name one that had no ID tag. We have picked them up at the AVSA Convention but it might be an idea to write the company and see if they will send them out.

Advice is often asked about the correct type of fertilizer to use. The subject is tossed back and forth. Often the type being used is blamed for the sickliness of plants. Certain brands are also avoided because of ingredients thought to be non soluble in potted plants. Much has been said about the fear of using Peters Fertilizer. We used it for years and never had a complaint. We stopped using it only because it was no longer available to the average grower in large quantities. The folks who talked about Peters not having usable ingredients are probably correct but we mention this only because it is not necessary to change a brand just because someone else does not like it. Currently we use Plant Marvel and used a bloom booster this spring when getting ready for garden club seminars. Remember though as the saying goes "If it ain't broke don't fix it".

Many of our readers have complained about algae in the reservoirs. There is a cure for that but it is not cheap. Cape Cod has the product called Physan 20. They sell it for about $6.25 for 16 ounces. It lasts a long time since you use only about one teaspoon per gallon of water. This is a product aimed at hospitals for disinfectant. It works like a charm to keep out algae.

Lastly for this month potting mix comes up over and over again in messages. Soil boils down to some basic materials. There is sphagnum moss, ground up bark, washed sand, perlite and vermiculite. There are of course a number of other ingredients ( see our article in March-April 2001 issue of The AV magazine). A mix heavy to sphagnum moss tends to elicit the most complains about plants drowning. When one combines the moss and vermiculite that also holds lots of water it often acts like a swimming pool. Actually as far as I can discover the nurseries use essentially the same potting mix all over the country to start flats of Petunias and Marigolds as well as hanging baskets. It might be a suggestion for anyone in doubt about what a good potting mix might be to check with any local plant nurseries. We do not mean a florist, however, for often they do not know what it is.

Our thanks to Don Geiss for putting together so much valuable information, and giving us permission to post it on our club's website. Thanks Don!

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