Maggie -

even it is hard to say what is wrong, there are certain problems all of us encountered when we tried to grow streps after being successful with violets.

1. Streps need lighter soil. Add a good amount of perlite to your violet soil for them.

2. They need to dry between watering. The best to water them again when they are ready to start drooping from thirst or already drooping a bit. So - wicking is kind of tricky, Texas method works Ok. Oyama pots work OK, as long as you let them dry between waterings.

3. to root the leaves - you need super light soil, barely -barely moist and high humidity - like under the domes.

4. They do not like high temperatures. In my conditions - they thrive in winter in the basement - under 65F - which is way too cold for violets - and survive in summer. So may be summer in Georgia is way too hot for them.

Good luck

Irina

One mistake I used to make is planting the strep too low in the soil. The crown likes to be above the soil a little bit or it will rot. This never happens to my AV's.

I have to admit I would grow violets in my basement (sometimes below 60 degrees!) and they were ok, however like Irina mentioned, the streps seemed to love it.

Try and contact Kathy S of mrsstrepstreps. She lives in Tucker and has a basement full of streps and gessies she grows and sells. I visited her recently and she gave me all kinds of information about growing them. Maybe she can help you with some info of what you might do differently. tish