Frosty

Guttation

Guttation is a secretion of fluid from a plant's leaf that comes onto the surface of the leaf out of specialized pores called hydrathodes.

This process happens when the surrounding humidity in the air is high, the soil moisture is high and the rate of transpiration (evaporation) is low. Plants enclosed in a terrarium will sometimes exhibit this phenomenon.

When the water being secreted contains minerals in the solution, like calcium, it will leave a whitish crust on the surface of the leaf when it dries.

Something Different

Look what's blooming! Right after the first big snow of the season there is a bit of exciting and exotic color right among the usual greenery. This is an Impatiens niamniamensis, commonly known as a Congo Cockatoo. It's a very young plant but it looks like it will be easy to keep in bloom.

Remember to try out some new and different plants to keep things interesting! If there is always a surprise waiting in the plant room, more time will be spent tending and enjoying the plants. Many plant families do as well under fluorescents as the violets do.

Peloric Flowers

Here are some photos of a peloric flower and the attempt to see if the trait will carry over in its offspring from seed.

The first two photos are of a normal strep blossom. It has a "pansy" shape and the throat decorations are on the bottom three petals. This is a nice size flower.

The next photo is of the peloric flower. A radially symmetric flower with all petals even and the throat decoration on all petals. The next photo shows the flower being self pollinated.

The seed pods are formed .... and the last photo shows that this is a generously sized pod. I can't wait for the seeds to ripen.

More Fall Show Spectacular

More photos of the Fall Show at Bachman's.

Look at the blooms on this Columnea!






A natural oak burl garden.
















One of my favorite violets. Rainbow's Quiet Riot by GP.










Happy Halloween.















A lot of lovely violets on display!

Fall Show Spectacular

Here are some of the beautiful flowers that were displayed at the Fall Show at Bachman's last weekend. Enjoy!

Happy Face displayed by MKF!










Ness' Blueberry Puff displayed by MKF!









Peppermint Girl shown by PH!









Ness' Antique Rose by PH!









Bold Party Girl displayed by CS!








Ness' Satin Rose shown by CS!








Positively Pink shown by SJ!







B-Man's Corleone displayed by SJ!










Warm Sunshine shown by GP!











Strawberry Daiquiri shown by GP!


Click on the photos for a larger, close-up view.

Show Show Show!!!

The Fall Display at Bachman's on Lyndale is coming right up. Saturday the 27th and Sunday the 28th of October 2007!!!

Bring plants to display, arrangements and dish gardens, terrariums and natural gardens.... bring them all so that we have a great show for the public!!!

Premier Event!!!

Check out the newest, the latest and most lovely! A new Sora hybrid that's so new it doesn't have an officially registered name yet. Do you have any ideas for its name? Use your imagination! ..... email nsavctc@gmail.com and let us know!!!

Update! Read All About It.

You may recall that on July 29 pictures were posted with a request for your opinion as to what might be the cause of the lost centers. Comments ranged from fertilizer burn to heat or potting stress to mites. I knew it was not mites, but was pretty open to potting or heat stress since it was very hot this summer and all the plants had recently been repotted.

So here’s what I did. The center of each plant was sprayed with fungicide and gently dabbed dry with a cotton swab. As the new center leaves either completely or partially turned soft and brown, they were totally or partially removed, being very careful not to do any excessive damage to the tiniest new leaves. I removed some of the potting medium from the top so it was slightly below the bottom leaf stems. I did not change my lighting or fertilizer schedule nor did I repot the plants.

Here are the original pictures and ones of the plants two months later.

Yukako looks great. The new leaves have filled in nicely and it has continued to bloom.

The leaves on Lyon’s Fortune Teller are filling in, but it has some major groom secessions coming up in the future.

Ma’s Winter Moon did not recover. However, it did produce some good suckers. Here is one recently potted up to a 2-1/2” pot.

Sora Munchie obviously did not recover either. But, as you can see, it has at least three good strong suckers which will be potted soon.

So now my question is - what would you have done with these plants? Would you have tossed them figuring they had some horrible disease or pest? Would you have worked with them? Since I had already paid once for the two chimeras and didn’t want to order just one plant to get Ma’s Winter Moon again, I opted to work with them. ...... Many thanks to Barb W. for the wonderful pictures and article!!!

Egads! There's a FUNGUS "amung-us"!

Fungi basics: Although most people think of fungi as plants, they actually more closely related to animals. The biggest difference between fungi and plants is how they obtain nutrients. All plants possess chloroplasts which allow them to produce sugars using carbon dioxide and water as the raw materials and sunlight as the energy source. Fungi are unable to create their own food using sunlight, and instead feed off of other organisms. Most fungi are detritivores that consume dead organic matter such as rotting wood or leaves. They excrete digestive enzymes onto their potential meal and absorb the dissolved nutrients.

The other main difference between plants and fungi is that all plants have a cell wall composed to cellulose. While fungi do have a cell wall, it is composed of a different substance called chitin. Chitin is the same molecule that makes up the exoskeletons of insects.

Although when we think of fungi we envision mushrooms, this is not the main part of the fungi. The mushroom is strictly a sexual organ, like a flower on a plant. It only appears when a fungus is ready to produce spores. The rest of the fungus, called the mycelium, generally looks like a mass of thread-like tendrils. The mycelium is rarely seen because it is normally underground or within what it’s decomposing.

Fungi are important because not only do they decompose dead organisms and release the nutrients trapped within, they are actually necessary for many plants to grow in the first place. For example, for a very long time cultivating orchids was nearly impossible, and nobody was quite sure why. The reason turned out to be that the orchids required a fungal symbiont to successfully germinate by providing it with food. An orchid seed is so small that without it’s fungus it doesn’t have enough food to survive, and the fungus continues to help it even after it has established by providing certain nutrients. It has recently been discovered that almost all plants have at least some fungal symbionts that help it survive. Although not all are as dependent on their fungi as orchids are, many plants would surely not exist if it were not for their fungal partners. Do the gesneriad depend on fungal partners???

Many, many thanks to Scientist Lynn for making this understandable!