Blossoms Finally!

THIS IS NICE . . .

I have blooming African Violets once again!

Luckily, I'm only growing them for my own enjoyment as the ones supposedly described with "fantasy blooms" are not very fantastic at the moment. 

One blue splotch finally showed up on the newest bud of Storybook Princess.

Reflections of Spring

Huge bloom stalk leaf!

Reflections of Spring is the plant with velvety-soft leaves I've pet every time I've come near it.  It started putting out buds first on the shelf, but they seemed to have taken forever to finally begin opening. 

Great huge cabbage-heads of green!  

I've never been a fan of green blooms, especially green edged ones, but these are curious enough make me reconsider!   

 

Plant ID - Double stars of gray/blue are outlined with a wide green edge that's slightly fringed. Medium green, standard foliage is tailored and slightly quilted. 

Ness' Fantasy Gold

Ness' Fantasy Gold is lovely - even without much gold!

This one is in a self-watering planter. It seems to be doing okay.  I'm wondering if the ceramic actually acts as a filter from my "hard" water?

I have leaves propagating to try the plant with my conditions from the start. This is one of the larger plants from my friend in Montana actually doing the best. Dropping a clipboard on a couple of their heads a month ago didn't help much!

UNUSUAL CONTAINERS!

I separated babies from mother leaves already of Blueberry  Kisses! August 15 - October 15.

These perfectly formed little plantlets were the only ones produced per leaf. Makes starting them off on their own easier to do because untangling them from the mother leaf was not an issue.

PLUS population is under control when only one baby is produced per leaf. Except I started about 6 leaves!

Turns out insurance leaves of this one was a good idea, since I moved my adult plant to the living room to see if less light would make the leaf stems grow longer (make the center less tight) and promptly chilled one side of the plant. Lost at least 3 leaves closest to the window and another looks suspect. 

But it started to bloom!

Do you see the face? I glued some of my "rock collection" into a sculpture! The face rock was found on a sandbar of Pleasant River while fishing along behind Tom. Lollipop Kid (another newly propagated baby - but questionable as to how it's adjusting) in a container rock found Letterboxing with Sara while she was home for a quick visit.

Self Watering Planter Update

Spooning Leaves . . . when they should NOT?

The sucker I managed to cut off the original Beca's Pink Crochet plant was placed in the Self-Watering planter. It's catching up in size, in part due to the fact that I keep pulling leaves off the older one. 

First leaves of both plants seem to be spooned shape and as they grow out they unfurl, leaving light colored stretch marks on the edges of the leaves.

I don't know if this is common. 

I don't think it's a desired trait! 

Plant ID I'm going by:

(9891) 02/04/2008 (C. Beca) Double pink frilled star. Dark green, heart-shaped, quilted/red back. Semiminiature.

I thought it might be an issue with serrated edges. 

But ID suggests otherwise as it doesn't actually say the edges are serrated. Hopefully it's not a lack of nutrient due my fertilizer choice. (?)

It doesn't seem like it's the fertilizer, as the older plant seems to be growing out of it.

BONUS: Blooms are beginning to show above the original plant!

(With a little nudge to help it between the leaves. Just to keep me humbled, the next plant I tried to "nudge" a bud for snapped completely off.  <sigh> )

Leaf Grafting Experiment Update

Babies are popping up!

Both variegated and light green leaves began showing by October 15th from the leaves I'm attempting to propagate by grafting stems. This method is mentioned in the vintage AV books but seems to be viewed more skeptically now.

But wouldn't it be cool? ;)

Update November 1, 2012
Picture shows they're growing. Variegated leaves seem more frilly than the mother leaf. Light green leaf of Lime Jewel is curly and frilled to the point of unruly. Heaven's Reflection's variegation seems different? Time will tell!

Trying very hard to keep my twitchy fingers from attempting to separate too soon. I want to grow out as many of the babies as possible to see if there are any changes.

(This post changed thanks to auto save. Tried to correct a typo and the whole thing disappeared.)