Mojave,

I'm sorry to hear about your Irish Flirt and Rob's Cotton Ball. Were you able to take leaves to put down before the plants died?

With your Rob's Combustible Pigeon I'd suspect some cultural condition (light, fertilizer, temperature, water, etc) in your growing environment is very different from the environment where the plant was started. Can you describe your growing environment? You didn't mention anything about blooms - is it blooming true?

-Tim

It hasn't bloomed since I got it. It was actually starting to bud but I don't recall actually seeing the blooms. I use reverse osmosis water, sometimes with a basic miracle grow liquid fert (I know not the best but I doubt that's the cause). The normal leaves didn't actually die off right away but they did with my neglect. I suspect it is either too much light or too high of a temp. It's actually at my office. The window is a very large and very wide south facing window so there's lots of light. At the time this started happening it was about two to three feet back from the window. It sometimes gets really warm in this area in the summer, in the 80s or so. It hasn't grown at all in the last 3 months but that's because I basically didn't do anything to it and it was only watered at others' mercy (I was out of the office for about half of that time). It is in a soil-less mix. It isn't because of my horrid watering habits because it happened before my neglect started.

So, what did the plant do, did it revert to one of its parents? I'm really familiar with orchids and succulents and I've never heard of a plant completely changing in appearance...maybe bleached leaves but nothing like this. I know AVs aren't that stable.

Mohave,

I'd suspect temperature to be the reason the new growth is not variegated. I have a couple of plants that lost their variegation over the summer when the room where I grow my AVs (my home office) was not air conditioned much of the time. The variegation returned in the new growth when the temperatures cooled.

In a year's time, this plant should have bloomed for you. I believe temperature can affect bloom size and quantity, but it should still bloom. Factors such as inconsistent watering and fertilization can also have an impact on the plants ability to bloom.

Before I give you advice, I should mention that I'm not an expert - I've only been growing AVs for a couple of years.

If this were my plant, I'd remove the outer couple rows of leaves and unpot the plant looking for any signs of pest problems or rot. Then I'd repot in the same size pot with fresh pottimg mix lowering the plant in the pot so that the (new) bottom row of leaves is just on top of the soil. I'd put the plant in a window that didn't get quite so much direct sun or under fluorescent light and begin a consistent watering/fertilization program. This plant is clearly a survivor - it'll thrive with a little TLC.

BTW - You can propagate new plants with the leaves that you remove - I do this regularly when I'm re-potting plants as insurance in case the newly repotted plant doesn't make it.

Please look at the links below - you'll find a wealth of information about the culture and care of AVs:

http://www.rachelsreflections.org/

http://www.violetbarn.com/plant_care.html

-Tim

Thanks! I definitely will look at those links. I bought 3 today, 4" pot sizes, to prove a point lol. Unfortunately I only have southern facing windows - both at work and at home. I think what's weird about the one I originally posted about was that originally it was light green with white variegation and nothing on the backing and now it is olive green with red backing. It probably is temperature. It is winter now and much cooler in that area, like in the 60s and 70s. Light isn't as strong because it's pretty much cloudy every day. We will see if anything changes with a little TLC in that spot. If not I'll have to move it somewhere!