Myth Busting the Legends... or Experiments for the Club!

Really? Is that TRUE?

Busting the MYTHS behind the legend!

What? Design an experiment to find out what will happen when you change ONE aspect of growing your plants.
Why? To see if some of the “standard advice” about growing violets - what we’ve always heard - is really TRUE. To learn about something that interests YOU.
When? Starting now in the summer or early fall so that we can all report back to the club about our results at future meetings this year.
Where? You’ll do this in your own growing environment at home.
Who? Everyone in the club is asked to try at least one simple experiment of your choice so that we might all learn something new.
How? By taking two of the same plant or two or more leaves of the same variety and choosing some aspect of growing those plants to see if what you’ve always heard is really true. For example: rooting a leaf in water is faster than rooting a leaf in soil.

Ideas: Which grows larger and faster, plants watered with Superthrive added to your usual routine or plants watered with what you usually use?
Do young leaves produce babies faster than old leaves?
Do Episcias grow better in warmer conditions or cooler ones?
Does pollinating a strep on the first day the bloom is open make more seeds/pods than pollinating the flower 5 days after it is open?
Do Grow-Lux bulbs make plants grow better than regular cool white fluorescents?
Do Kohleria rhizomes store better in moist sphagnum or in plastic bags in the refrigerator?
Does watering with cold water stunt the plant as opposed to room temperature water?
Does water on a violet leaf REALLY cause a spot?

Here is the shortened write-up of the club's next proposed project. We'd like everyone to participate and try to experiment on some aspect of horticulture. Let's be creative, let's really try to find out something interesting. I would love to put pictures in the blog following the progress of the experiments!!! You may send an email attachment or an actual photo in and we'll get it into the blog.

The topic you choose can be something elaborate or simple, but every piece of information is valuable. Who would have thought that upsetting or wiggling the roots of strep babies would make them grow faster? But, Dale Martens tried this and showed all us strep lovers something extremely useful for getting streps to grow quickly and thusly allowing the grower to see what the babies look like months ahead of the old "tried and true" way. Let's find another really cool result like that one!

We're Not There Yet.

Here are two colors that haven't happened in the world of violets yet. Why don't we have either turquoise or orange for our African violets? There are finally flowers with yellow coloration and although they tend to be somewhat mellow in hue, why when crossed with a red ... have we gotten no orange?

We've also seen blue flowers and green flowers, but we haven't hit a true turquoise color on a whole flower.


I checked this out with Dr. Jeff Smith and he agrees that we haven't quite gotten to those two particular colors yet. He says: "I’ve seen orange in African violet flowers as streaks. The trick will be getting it over the whole flower. That we haven’t managed to do just yet. I’ve not seen a shade that I would have called turquoise. Would that be a light blue over green combination? We can get blue flowers with green edges, but I don’t know if we can get green over the entire flower. It’s a similar problem to that of orange flowers."

Wouldn't it be fun to be the first to come up with a totally original color for our violets?

Lady Slipper Orchid

A pretty part of spring in Minnesota.

Me? Organize? You Have Got to be Kidding!

For those of you who have taken your life in your hands and walked through my “sewing, craft, plant, stuff” room, know what a mess it is. Surprisingly, I have a pretty good idea where everything is. However, as cluttered as the room may look, the closet is worse. That is where I kept all my design materials.

I absolutely love doing design, but it had started becoming more like a chore. Much of my design materials was kept in a two-drawer organizer which really wasn’t. Each drawer is 18” long x 14” wide x 8” deep. Plus there was also a box with material, one for dried weedy things, one for baskets, moss, containers of dried materials, etc. Doing design meant pulling the drawers out and rummaging through them. By the time I was done, half the family room had stuff scattered around. Dragging it all out and then trying to put it away would have me saying “*!!?#*#?/” to design.

We went shopping! The result was an organizer with more, but much smaller drawers and it is on wheels. The drawers are 14” long x 11” wide. Four drawers are 3” deep and three are 7” deep. It is perfect! Now my design organizer IS. One drawer has shiny sparkle stuff, one has small containers of all sorts, one has fastening materials, etc. The deeper drawers are divided up with small boxes. The whole experience was kind of like a treasure hunt. I found items that were completely forgotten. So much ended up on the bottom of those big deep drawers. The old two-drawer now holds larger items. It’s soooo nice to have it all where I can see it.

By the way, NO the rest of the room still looks the same. There’s only so much organizing that can be done at one time. Give me a few years.

Many thanks and appreciation to Barb Werness for this great article!!!

Perry's Old Age

Perry's fabulous inflorescence has almost completely collapsed. Soon the corm will send up a leaf... only one leaf.... that will probably be the biggest leaf in the entire state of Minnesota.

The links to the college of Gustavus have lots of further information about Perry; using an engine hoist to move the corm into another pot, the problems with finding a pot for a hundred pound corm.... taking mom to smell a "corpse flower" for Mother's Day and so much more!!! Check it out!

All about Perry! Enjoy. I hope they'll keep the web cams going when the leaf is growing.

AVSA National Show

Here's a sneak peak at the winners of the show at the AVSA's national convention in Denver this past week. The gesneriphile list had a posting by Irina N. that included this photo. The winning entry that is featured in the middle of the shot is a hybrid, Rebel's Rose Bud, by our very own Ruth Bann!!!

Irina labels the entries: From left to right Best Semiminiature - Ness'Cranbery Swirl - Beverly Williams, Mississauga, ON Best Miniature - Jolly Orchid - Ann Nicholas, Denton, TX 2nd Best AV in show, Best Species - Saintpaulia grandifolia #299 - Bill Price 2nd Best Trailer - Lady Trail - Bill Price Best African Violet in Show, Best Standard, Best Variegated violet - Rebel's Rose Bud - Richard Nicholas under it - Streptocarpus Cape Beauties - I remember it as a best streps, but do not see it on the list) - Nelly Levine, Arvada, CO 3rd Best AV in SHOW - Mary Craig - Richard Nicholas, Denton, TX Best Trailer - Foxwood Trail - Bill Price Best Other Gesneriad - Pearcea sp. 'Equador' - Bill Price

Congratulations to all the folks who entered and attended the show. I hope we'll have more photos to post when everyone gets home from the trip!

University of MN Arboretun

What a fabulous day to visit the University of Minnesota Landscape Arboretum!!! The peonys were in full bloom.






The bees were enjoying the flowers too. There is a bee on the flower in the lower left of the photo.






This one is named Scarlet O'hara. It's got an almost fluorescent color to it.






It's also the time for the Lady Slipper orchids to be in bloom. The yellow varieties are peaking and the pink aren't in bloom yet.






There were orchids everywhere in the wild flower gardens, along with wild geranium, trillium, Virginia waterleaf and many more. They have name tags on a great many plants making identification very easy.




How about a Celandine poppy?











The pools are stocked with good size koi that will come up to you and see if there is anything interesting going on ... (if you brought food with you....)





The iris were just starting to come into full bloom. Another week or two and the scene would be complete.




Here's the center of the formal gardens. Much more was blooming than shows up in the photo today.



A trip to the Arboretum wouldn't be complete without a trip around the three mile drive that has acres and acres of collections. One of the collectons are the azeleas that stretch almost as far as the eye can see. Their fragrance filled the air too!

Any "plant person" would really enjoy a trip to the Arboretum. There's plenty to see!

What Do You Get When You Cross A .......

Have you ever wondered about the traits that you see in the violet you're entering in the show? How did the hybridizer get the Geneva Edge on that cultivar? You know, the plant that has those pretty purple flowers with the striking white edge. Are the "girl foliage" style leaves more common than the "boy" style?

Here's a brief and basic chart, graciously provided by Dr. Jeff Smith, that gives us an overview of the basic traits that are dominant and recessive in the African violet! I'd like to thank Dr. Smith for this information and Clay Anderson for the great cartoon that so nicely fits with our subject! Ever notice how "plant people" are the best when it comes to sharing information and help with regards to our horticultural hobby? Remember to send some comments and let these folks know that you appreciate their contributions!!!

African Violet Genetics

Dominant --- Recessive

Flower Traits:
Violet Shape ---Star Shape
Geneva Edges ---Solid Edges
Raspberry Edges --- Solid Edges
Fringed Edges---Non-fringed Edges
Fantasy Pattern---Solid Flowers
Double Flowers ---Single Flowers
Pale Colors---Dark Colors
Blue Flowers---All other colors
Red Flowers---Pink, White
Non-Coral colors---Coral family colors
Bluing Factor---Non-Bluing
Mottled Flowers ---Non-mottled flowers
Thumbprint Flowers--- Solid Flowers
Glitter factor ---Non-glitter

Leaf Traits:
Girl Foliage ---Boy Foliage
Ruffled Foliage---Plain Foliage
Plain Foliage---Spooned Foliage
Longifolia Shape--- Rounded Shape
Red Backing ---Green Backing
Watermelon ---Veins Plain Veins
Clackamus Veins ---Plain Veins
Solid Foliage---Lilian Jarrett Foliage (in part)

Plant Traits:
Small Size ---Normal Size
Non-trailing---Trailing

Maternal Traits: Tommie Lou and Crown Variegation, Lilian Jarrett Variegation (in part). Offspring will only show the trait if the seed parent had the trait.

The following list is the expected results from genetic crosses with dominant and recessive traits:

1. Dominant X Dominant
Result - all Dominant offspring or 75% Dominant and 25% Recessive

2. Dominant X Recessive
Result - all Dominant offspring or 50% Dominant and 50% Recessive

3. Recessive X Recessive
Result - all Recessive offspring

The percentages given for the offspring are approximate values. The actual results you get may vary considerably from these percentages.

Perry's Done Blooming

Perry's flowering is all but done! They cut a window into Perry to show what the flowers and pollen looked like... the first blown-up photo has the male parts of the flower on top, and the female parts lower down. The smaller photo shows the edge of the cut-out. The cut out portion of the spathe was quite thick and described like this: "So: the base of Perry’s spathe consists, in a conceptual manner, of an outer thin layer of tough celery, followed by a thick inner layer of slightly pliable styrofoam, and lined with a thin, hard, stiff waxy layer."












Now Perry has started to wither and collapse. The flowering is done, but then it is expected that the largest leaf (when fully grown) to be found in Minnesota will emerge. The college is planning to keep at least one web cam on Perry to watch the leaf emerge. This is cool stuff!!!

Charles Lawn Hybrid

This is a new hybrid Sinningia by Charles Lawn and grown by Dale Martens. She says that it only takes approximately four months to go from seed to flower! Part of the secret to this incredibly fast growth and flowering is to "disturb" or "wiggle" the young seedling in it's pot every week or two. The stress to the small plant seems to stimulate faster and more viperous growth!

Thanks to Dale for allowing me to post these new and exciting flowers. I'm a fan of the new and different and she certainly has some excellent plants that she's willing to share, again.. thanks!