Spela,
Your violets look like they are growing very well, there used to be another lady on this forum that was growing in the clay pellets. It is very interesting to see, thank you for posting your pictures. You have beautiful violets!

Vera/Ca

very nice violets. Some day I may try to grow an AV this way.
Thanks for sharing.
Mary

Hi! Your violets are beautiful. I was curious how you get them placed so perfectly in the bottles.

Spela, you are doing very well in s/h. Your plants are beautiful. Do you know which brand of clay pellets you are using?

How often do you fertilize?

They are looking great! The tight centers may be from too much light or a little too much fertilizer. We usually cut the fertilizer dosage in half or fourths when wick watering, and that would apply to the semi-hydroponics aslo.

Thank you for including so many great pictures. We all love pictures.

Barbara

Your plants look awesome. I'm new to AV growing I've never been very good at growing them. I love learning how to grow new things in different was. Thanks for sharing your pics and ideas. They are great!

Hi Spela! Your AV's are beautiful! I grow mine in clay pellets(Hydroton) too. I could never grow them in soil...??? Mine are bloooming right now.

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Here's some older photos:
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Iochroma~~~~~~~~~Crown of thorns~growing in S/H
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Theresa

Theresa, they look very happy. Thank you for sharing.

I tried hydroton earlier in the year. They grew well, but I had fertilization issues. What do you use to fertilize and how often - a weak solution all the time or something less frequent?

Thank you! I use either Dyna-Grow liquid fert. or the liqid Schultz AV food with the dropper( I know that isn't very good, but it works for me).I usually feed every other time I water which is every few weeks. My mom's AV's are 12" across in soil. I asked her what she uses to feed them, she said just the Jobe's plant spikes. I am using them right now in the water at the bottom of the pots. We'll see.

Theresa

I found these fascinating. Is there somewhere I can find out more about trying this?

I am going to get coarse perlite (if I ever decide which #) from an orchid supplier, and I see they have 2 sizes of the pellets. Clearly someone is say "put pellets in a jar and try an african violet," right?

Spela,

At least a couple of your plants remind me of Optimaras (Holtkamp). I just read an older article by Mr. Holtkamp saying that their plants would get brittle leaves and tight centers with too much light. I don't think all their plants are like that now, but I believe some still follow the older type. I guess some we find are fairly old varieties. (AVSA article) Of course it could be something else too.

Diana in PA

I have been wanting to try this for a long time but haven't had the chance yet. There is a seller with a VERY informational website and he's located in PA just north of Philly. I can't put in a link but if you google First Rays Orchids then click on semi hydo information link :)

I went to post the link to the above,and GW says it's spam....?
I'm going to post a couple more links, where I learned about it.

Theresa

This was the first place I read about Hydroculture. I have alot of my houseplants growing like this.

Theresa

Here's info on wetting AV leaves and an easy way to convert AV's to hydroculture, from a reader on Water Roots website:

"One little niggle, about the wive's tale that AVs don't like to get their leaves wet. It rains in Africa. Plants that are damaged by water on their foliage wouldn't live long. AVs *do* like an occasional shower; what they *don't* like is cold water. Tilt your pot under a low pressure tap set to *tepid*. Gently rub the leaves to remove accumulated dust, use a tissue to blot any water in the crown, and set them in a draft-free area while they dry. They'll look brighter and happier for it."

"Oh. To convert an AV plant, remove all the roots and scrape the stem, set it in a glass of water and bag the whole thing until it roots; then you can wean it from the bag and move it into hydroton. Easy peasy. :-)"

Many of the links I try to post anymore are listed as spam. First Rays is very active on several orchid forums which is how I originally found out about this method. "Ray" has many informative posts and is very active at this one - Orchid Board is a HUGE orchid community. His profile also has a link to his site.

I read the information on First Rays website. Does anyone use the media suggested there (PrimeAgra)? The place I am ordering from has Aliflor and apparently this isn't very good.

If this is too complicated, I won't try it. However, I may be going to the orchid show at Phipps to pick up a bale of Pro-Mix and may be able to buy from some other vendors.

I certainly enjoyed the photos and information no matter what!

Diana in PA

Hello

Few months ago I asked a lot of questions about AV in hydroculture and now I have some good results and few more photos to show :).
Thanks to all who replied on my post and also thanks to Threas for showing her violets.

I cut down the fertilizer, so now I only use 10% of plain liquid fertilizer 6-6-6 all the time and I donât have any problems with tight centers anymore.
I donât use any special brand of clay pellets, I just buy the smallest size they have.

I will start with the photo I ended my last post. All four suckers I put on clay pallets are blooming right now. I even got a nice surprise with a few violet blooms :).

July 2nd
{{gwi:369022}}From Afriške vijolice

August 6th
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September 10th
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This week
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I also tested the growth in different pot sizes and all violets are blooming. But they are growing in a different conditions so the real comparison will be later on. The easiest maintain is with the pot no.3, so now on I will transplant all my new baby violets in a half liter bottle with hole in the cap. The evaporation is the slowest and I have to add water only every 3 weeks. In the pots no.1 and no.2 I have to add water every few days.

October 7th
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October 28th ( the third one is booming)
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Those are my violets. (I bought my first two last December and a friend gave me two violets and 12 leaves ). Only five of them are still in the dirt.
So, enjoy my photos, also in my picasa album.

Spela

Wow! Great job Spela, looks like one of then sported to a chimera too. An extra nice surprise for you. Good Growing
Vera/CA

Just a quick review for myself (Correct me if I am wrong)
Remove AV and as much of the older soil from roots in old container then just coral (replant) roots into a hydro tank as seen in examples.

I then flush tank and pellets to clean them and rotting of remaining soil weekly until all remaining old soil is gone.

I have no doubt leaf propagation is also a viable option but I'd like to get the ones I have out of the existing pots into hydro tron a converting manner in that sense.

Mrlike2u, when I transplanted my older violet in clay pallet, I did it this way. I removed the suckers and I cut off all roots. I put the crown with neck on plastic cup with water, covered with transparent folio. So, the new roots started in water. Two months later I surrounded new roots with pellets. I put also a wide straw in the cup, so when I have a plant in decorative pot I could check level of the water with pipette, or thin straw.
{{gwi:369030}}From Afriške vijolice
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Next time I will do it this way. I will decrown a violet and I will put a crown direct ON pellets. The new roots will start to show from neck in a week or two if the neck will be in contact with moist pellets. (You should test before how high the level of water should be, that the pellets are moist and darker. Later when AV already have a lot of long roots, is better to keep the top dry ). I will use humidity dome, plastic bottle or fish tank . On the remaining plant, without main crown, probably few new crowns will grow, and latter I will treat them like suckers. I think this way I will get more plants from one AV quicker.
I believe this will work because I think I read somewhere they also propagate Optimaras this way.
Root a leaf or two in case anything will go wrong. Good luck, but I believe everything will go just fine :).

Spela

:blush:

I mean Chimera Propagation not Optimara propagation.

http://www.rachelsreflections.org/chimera.htm

I will do the same she did, but I'll also root the crown I'll cut off.

I've really enjoyed the photos. Since the orchid supplier had only one brand of pellets and not a good according to one of the sites, I decided not to try it at this time (I have about enough going on).

If the chimera Vera is referring to is the pink/white pinwheel (?) shown in the last two photos, this shows an amazing resemblance to a plant called Flash Dance by Annalee Violetry which is pictured in an 1986 AVM. It is also in FC2, but the resemblance is stronger in the older photo. (I've been going through old magazines and just noticed this by chance.)

They are all beautiful. Thank you for the information. Is it important to use a clear container?

Diana in PA

I just noticed your question about your changeable violet/white plant. I don't know if you got any responses but I have some plants that are very affected by the changes in seasons and presumably in growing conditions.

Arctic Frost is probably the most dramatic. It's like having at least 3 plants in one. I don't know if that could be an issue for you or not.

Diana

mrlike2u, I did propagate using semi-hydro - worked fine.

Spela, I have only tried semi-hydro with young plants that I started from leaves in semi-hydro. I had a problem with finding the right amount of fertilizer. Too little and they were pale. Too much and the salts would build up on the small leaves.

Please help me understand so I can get it right when I try it again. When you say a 10% of liquid fert, do you mean you use 10% of the recommended amount of liquid? Maybe if you give me an example, I will more easily see how you do it. Do you add water with fertilizer to the existing solution or do you empty the water every time you add water? If not, do you ever flush them?

For anyone who is interested, I successfully used Oyama pots to do this. I used clay pellets and another media called GrowRocks. I like the GrowRocks better for the leaves, but the pellets better for the plants. I couldn't get the fertilization right, so it failed ultimately, but the all my leaves had plantlets and all lived afterward.

spela Thanks for the follow up, while waiting for a response I had cleaned an ( One) AV and hydro'd it as I mentioned. I didn't expect a 3 day 180 degree turn around in the AV healthier looks. I like the AV crown propagating idea in your pics I have some other AVs in flowering at the moment and plan on "crown splitting it" into hydro during it's break.

Correction: Just in case anyone ever references old African Violet Society magazines, the photograph of "Flash Dance" by Annalee Violetry is in the March 1984 magazine, p. 68. The likeness to Spela's violet is amazing (unless it is Flash Dance.)

I got confused when I saw that Flash Dance was registered in 1986.

I would like to try this if I get what I have under control. I bought many new leaves this year and then the T8s messed up so many of my old plants that I am having to redo/restart them.

Thank you for sharing so much information and the lovely photos.

Diana in PA