Big mice! Congrats!

What variety is the Tommie Lou variegated one? (Left, second from the top).

Karin

Christmas Dream

Now those are the kinds of mice I won't mind in my house! lol Yay!!! Rosie

Note the date on the original post, nearly one year ago! That was on the old Garden Web format where I could post easily from my phone. The leaves were put down about three months before the photo, or in March, except for a couple of the larger ones, from April.

Most of those plants have not bloomed yet. They have grown out to the fluffy "lettuce patch" stage. I have always had that problem with my plants. They usually insist on growing out a full circle of leaves, usually two rows, or even three, before they bloom. Must be my growing conditions. But at least I am growing nice, symmetrical rosettes. More than one year --maybe 15 months--from setting a leaf to a blooming plant is average for me under natural bright light. Joanne

HA HA HA HA HA!!! You know,,,,I never look at the dates of the posts! I see something,,,my brain sleeps while my mouth (or typing fingers) engages and I am making a comment and happily enjoying myself eagerly waiting for an answer or the next person to make a comment !!!!! lol lol!!! Well, Joanne,,,thanks for the update! ha ha ha!!! Rosie

Speaking of mouse ears!!!!!!!!!!!!! I have a pair! The first pair in YEARS!!!!! I was sent a leaf of Optimara Cora. She had some roots and a little itty bitty baby started. I planted her in a Kcup on 5/28/14. I figured it may take a couple weeks until they surfaced, but guess what?????? Yesterday when I checked everyone there was a cute little pair of ears! Already up quite a bit! Like it happened overnight!!!!! I am such a proud mama!!!!! lol Rosie

Cora as an Optimara, is sometimes a good performer! (However, I have found almost anything can develop with Cora's blooms!)

These guys above in my old photo are all "teenagers" now, they are still not blooming yet, but that is because they went through a hard winter, we moved to a new house, installed a water filtration system, I used the filtered system that stunted the new growth. So everything is struggling to grow and bloom. But they are all very green and shiny, for some reason.

I just got a new crop of mice ears, tiny little specks of green, I never get tired of that stage when the leaf has "taken" and out pop sturdy little "mittens" or "ears." Ironically, these are the baby ears that will eventually need to be removed, they are not the true violet leaves. But it sure is fun to have them to greet the day and seek the sun.

Maybe because I lived on the east coast for so many years, when that first spring bulb of Snow Drops would send up green through the snow, well, there was nothing like that feeling of life returning again. Now that I live in a dry area where there is not enough rain, it is very painful to not be able to plant a garden. So we have our front yard garden. And my indoor garden of violets. Joanne

I just love Cora. Maybe her flowers are all over the map from what I read in the forum, but I will look and love everyone of them! And like I said before, I haven't seen violet babies sprout for years! It was very exciting!!!!!

We used to have a water filtration system (out in the country and only very bad sulfur water). Those things use tons of salt to filter the water we had hauled in,,,,at least ours did and it was the filtered salted water that we ended up using thru the house for everything. Ugh. Needless to say I didn't have very many plants left (let alone violets). They ran city water down our road finally and yes siree we piped into it. Now I have too many plants! lol

Do you use your filtered water on your plants? I hope the babies recover and do well. Rosie

I don't know how the new water filtration system works. But judging from the appearance of the plants, it possibly adds a chemical. I was using the filtered water, but now I am switching back to bottled spring water with no additives. From past experience, it takes the plants a while to get back to normal. Not all of them were affected. Fortunately, this is their growing season, so they hopefully will recover in a few weeks or months. Joanne

I know our system used bags of salt. Made the water nice and soft but I could taste the excess salt and I retained too much of it and swelled. Imagine how my plants felt. Well,,,,,,eventually dead! Yes this is their growing season and I just love to see the explosion of growth and bloom. I really wish I would remember to fertilize once in a while! Rosie

Suggestion, keep a gallon jug of water with fertilizer on hand, then alternate the water jugs. I now use spring water that comes in jugs, so it is easy for me to use this system. The plastic watering can is used with the fert. water. Joanne

That's a thought. Rosie

That's really interesting about the filtered water. I just moved June 2nd to a new house with a water softener and triple stage filtration system for the whole house. All of my violets look better than they ever have, but we moved from a place with very very hard water, lots of mold ( I had to repot constantly because mold would grow on the top layer of soil from watering my plants) and not enough natural sunlight anywhere. So I wonder if the better environment is making them thrive and forget about the salty water, or if my type of system just doesn't leave as much salt?

Well, Nicola I am sure there are different systems. My plants did not thrive on our particular salt system. Slowly, very slowly they started to languish and took their sweet old time dying. I looked for bugs to no avail. Never occurred to me it was salty water. As the violets and other plants died I didn't replace them. Then we got city water. And boy did we tap in quick!

I finally have gotten back into my violets after I found this forum, Maybe your system is different! I hope so. Rosie

I do know systems are different, but I am not well versed in all of them. Only know that once ours was installed, it was about 27 years ago. We went through 3 different sysems before we settled on one and all I know is that they used massive bags of salt,,,and plants died. I do know our water was soft but I could taste salt in it. I didn't like it at all! We got our city water tap in over 15 years ago. Thank goodness for city water! That's what I know! Rosie

All those poor plants. I'm sorry that happened to you Rosie!

Thank you laticauda. I felt so bad for them. I didn't have the heart to stop watering but I had so many,,,,,purchased water was not an option. BUT I am on a roll again!!!!!! Rosie

Oh Goody! I have little mouse ear, yes I said ear, only one ear, coming up from Senk's Blue Cascade! I hope the other one comes up soon! What if it doesn't????? I will just let it keep doing something until, well, I don't know. As long as something is growing I will care for it! But only one little ear so far!!!! Rosie

Got another leaf producing little ears! Noticed them yesterday but for the life of me I can't remember the name of it and I am in a different room! Will post name later! Rosie

Hi, Often, just one little green dot become visible first. But sometimes we don't notice until there are a few. The first two leaves will be the immature leaves that will eventually wither away, to be replaced by the regular leaves. Nevertheless, it is exciting to see them.

Once the green dots appear, I remove the leaf pot from the domed leaf tray and move it to a brightly lit window along with the other green dots. It goes from the incubator to the open air nursery. That gives it more light and has a better chance of being monitored.

From having lived most of my life on the east coast where the growing season was short-lived, I would never tire of seeing the first "Snowdrops" poke their heads through the snow.

So it is that kind of feeling every time I see little green dots sprouting from the AV leaves. It is a feeling of accomplishment.

I used to get excited over sprouting mung beans for bean sprouts!

Joanne

Ha ha ha ha! Yeah good old mung bean sprouts! Pretty bad when that becomes exciting but I have done the same thing! lol Rosie

ever grown grass (as in lawn) in a pot on the dinning room table, just because it is January, LOL?

OMG, funny you mentioned growing grass. Years ago I was the room (grand) parent for my grandson's preschool. Easter was coming up. I found some small baskets and some little bunnies, eggs and chicks about 1/2inch tall. I went to our local greenhouse and asked for some grass seed that would sprout quickly. (little ones have short attention spans!) He asked what I was doing and I told him the kids will fill their little baskets with soil and plant grass seed. When the seed grows and gets about 3 inches tall, the kids are going to use the bunnies, eggs and chicks to decorate it! He ended up donating the seed and soil. Kids had so much fun! (so did I) they couldn't wait to take them home! BUT what the kids didn't know is that I had to trim each basket of grass every few days!!!!! lol Kids didn't know. But I learned just how fast a fast growing seed can grow!!!!!!! Rosie

great memories!