Jerome

all you plants are healthy and growing.

My 2cents will be - you overpot them some - and the soil for Oyamas should have more perlite to lighten them up. The palnts in overly big pots look just a little bit stunted because they are sitting in big lump of soil which is too big and since there is not enough roots in it - the soil gets compactesd and doesn't let enough air.

Eventually they will grow into it - but it slows them down.

Irina

Thanks Irina. That helps a lot. I ordered wicking potting soil from Violet Barn which is really light...and I am going to re-pot some of them this weekend. I'll just be patient and wait for them to grow - and use lighter soil.

Thanks a lot!

Hi, Jerome:

I second Irina. General rule of thumb is pot should be 1/3 size of AV at its widest point; i.e., 12" plant in 3" pot. It looks as if you have them in the 4" and 5" planters. Way too big for baby plants. If you look at photos of my stand you'll see they're mostly in 3" planters. Only my large variegates on the bottom shelf are in anything larger.

But I think the lighter soil will definitely help.

Linda

Gosh...I need to order some 3" pots today! Thanks for the great advice. Please tell me it's easy to "pot them down" a size.

Jerome -

Your collection is not that large YET.

For intermediate potting you can use plastic solo cups, yogurt cups, etc - anything you can make a hole in a bottom and trim the top so it is on a squatty side.

Add perlite even to VB soil if you are using Oyamas. may be 1/4.

I.

I NEVER recommend AV soil. It's WAY to heavy. Don't know why they make it the way they do.

When you repot make sure your pots are shallow. Yours look pretty deep. The deeper the more likely to have root rot if soil is wet too long. The plants themselves look fine. I like your Funambule flowers. I don't have that one - yet!

Tricia

Tommyr -

i was talking about VB - Violet Barn violet soil - which is very good, not about Miracle Grow or Scotts AV soil. You are correct- these are practically pure peat, full of fungus gnats and wood chips and can be used if you cook it to knock the gnats down and add a hefty amount of perlite and a bit of vermiculite.

The way they - big companies do it - because peat is cheap and general public is not going to pay 3 times more for the really good soil.

I.

Here is a link to a website that has PDF's on how to grow and water wick African violets.

Here is a link that might be useful: Violet Patch of South Florida

I use Miracle Grow African Violet mix, and I have never had a problem with fungus gnats or any other problem with it. I don't use it from the bag, but mix it 50/50 wit perlite most of the time. Sometimes I add a little more perlite. I wick water my violets over grids.

What a great site! Thank You , Jillian!

Ima-digger -I tried to use Miracle grow plus Perlite - and it works - and I tried Pro-Mix Bx plus perlite and it works too (and it is a bigger bag). Our beloved plants do OK in a lot of mixes provided the basic needs are met.

irina