The upcoming show has a new category. The GROCERY STORE violet. What do you do with what you typically get at the store?
This one is from the home improvement store actually, but you see a bunch of stuff wrong with it.
It has baby leaves, broken leaves, spent flowers, suckers, what doesn't it have wrong?
First, the baby leaves come off.
Look for the small leaves that are directly under the largest outer row of leaves. The outer row should logically have the biggest, oldest leaves. When they are little you know that they are from the starter plant and they are babies.
Take off all the spent blossoms, the broken stuff etc.
Look deeper under some of the leaves. See the small plantlet that is starting in the center. It's the little thing with three leaves and it is NOT the center of the plant, as you can see the center is further back not in focus right now.
Here is that small three leaved sucker removed. You could plant up that portion to make a baby plant.
One of the lower leaves is rotated to the right. If we reposition it, it might straighten up in a couple of weeks and fill in the gap.
Toothpicks work nicely to gently move the leaf into the position you want it to be in.
Now the cleaned up, and groomed plant is under lights and we'll see if it can be taken to the show as an example of what you can do with a plant you just purchased from a regular store but want to look like a "show plant"
Please feel free to comment.
