Lucy -

I do not know what kind of fluorescent bulb you have and where you measured your 800 footcandles. How many watts does it use?

The light that gets to the surface diminishes proportionally to the square of the distance to the light source - so the footcandles near the bulb are significantly more than at 30" from the bulb.

You can post your pics directly at the Gallery part of this forum.

If you got your 800 footcandles measured at the leaves level and you keep your light on for 10-12 hours a day, your violets should bloom practicaly non-stop. Unless there are some other problems..

Good luck

Irina

we lost the packaging but it is one of the new long lasting flourescent bulbs that you can buy now, it says 14 watt which online I found is equal to 800 candles.
I have it in a shop type silver shade pointing down on the plants about 340 min above the AV.s
Lucy

Lucy -

there is a candle and there is a footcandle - which relates to the the surface this "candle" is servicing. Too many feet.
l4 watt lamp would be OK if you keep it 3-5 inches above the plant. - and it means not too many plants can be put under it - looks like 1. (what is 340 min? )

If you do not have too many violets - get a 65 watt one - $9 i think in HD and lower your fixture closer - 15". If you have lots of them - get a shoplight, put 2 plant hooks in your ceiling and hang the fixture 12" above your plants.

Since I do not know if they get any natural light at all, I cannot say. but If they are sitting at the north window - may be just getting a bulb with bigger wattage will work OK without changing the setup.

30" for that wattage bulb is too far away. Probably 6-12" would be better. Are the leaves staying flat? If their growing up it's a sure sign of not enough light.

I have them in an East window, 30 In from the plants sits my shop light.
Some of the larger AV's have the leaves growing up, the smaller ones do not.
My dear DH wants to know what candle power is and how to measure it?
Lucy

Lucy -

here is the link to the wikipedia site.

It was in the high school physics class - and of course we all totaly forgot it.

There is a light meter you can purchase - it will be about $32 and it will measure you the intensity of light in foot candles. Basically - full sun outside - gives you 10000 fc,
a shoplight with 2 fluorescent tubes 10 inches from the tubes will give you a measure 500-800 fc - depending how new are the tubes etc.

Since you are supplementing the east window light, you already have lots of natural light - so you need just a bit more than you have. (By the way - shoplight- we usually call the fixture with fluorescent tubes, not with a bulb).
So get yourself a bigger bulb, 14 watts is way too low, and lower your fixture down.

Good Luck

Irina

Here is a link that might be useful: light intensity

Thanks, we moved the light closer to the plants, is will now hopefully help produse blooms,

It is not a "shop light "that uses the long tube bulbs, it holds a standard 100 watt bulb, I have repolaced that with a flourescent 60 W which now is12 min above the AV's
Lucy

Lucy -

I am expecting your grateful violets to start blooming in 2-3 weeks. At least show the buds. Please post the pics on the gallery when it happens.

Cheers

Irina

I did already post the pics of when I first bought them. Check out the gallery,

I will post again when I get blooms.
lucy

Lucy -

I looked at them. They are lovely and have a great potential.
Thank you for the pics.

Irina

Wondering how your plants did last year after you changed the light.

Did you get more blooms? And how long did you have to wait?

Hi,
Sometimes when a plant doesn't bloom I squeeze the pot to disturb the root system. I know it sounds stupid but it has worked for me.
Fred in NJ