Project Noid:

I bought this plant a few weeks ago at a local garden center.  It looked so odd that I picked it up to get a better look, and noticed that it had absolutely beautiful flowers!  The plant itself though, looked so mangled.  It was actually a plant with a huge sucker.  It looked like an AV mohawk (there are pics in my album).  Anyway, I divided the plants and so far, both are doing well.  I can't wait until they get better and bloom again.  My ultimate goal is to turn these plants into plants that could go to show (if they weren't noids).  It's going to be quite a challenge for a newbie like me to accomplish this, considering how bad they looked originally.  It should be fun!

 

Other plants:

I bought another noid today.  They just sucker me in (oops, no pun intended)!  This is a white star with light purple thumbprints.  I haven't repotted/disbudded it yet.  I think I'll enjoy the flowers for a few more days before I do this, seeing as all of my poor violets are disbudded right now.  They all still have the curled centers they got from me over-fertilizing.  I'm wondering if they'll uncurl on their own, or if I'll actually have to wait for them to grow out.  Well, live and learn.  Most of them are trying to bloom right now, which makes me happy.  I can't wait until I can actually let them.  Oh, I almost forgot, tomorrow is the meeting for the local AV club.  I'm so excited!  Hopefully this time I'll be able to find it!  One more thing: I was planning on ordering some plants from a vendor, and had someone offer me some of hers for free!  It's amazing to me how generous some people are, even to people they don't know.  Well, that's all for now.  I'll try to keep updated on when I repot, fertilizer, etc all my plants.

Well, I got back from the AV meeting a little while ago.  Again, I almost didn't find it .  Everyone there was very nice.  I found out that they're having a small show in May and another in October!  Yay!!  I don't think they'll be actual judging shows, probably just something where people can bring and show off their plants for the public.  I got some good advice for my violets that I'll be trying probably today or tomorrow, and I found out about a good garden store that sells some urea-free fertilizers!  Unfortunately, it's all the way downtown Honolulu .  Oh well, I'll probably make the trek down there tomorrow or maybe next weekend.  Today was also the first time I've ever seen mini/semi-mini plants.  Man, I had no idea they were so very tiny!  I really didn't think they could possibly be very much smaller than standards...I was sooooo wrong.  And, before I left, guess what?  Someone gave me 'Irish Flirt' just for coming to the meeting!  It has one open flower and a million buds on it!  I'm so excited.  I hope that I'll be able to make next month's meeting, though I told them I may not be able to because of the baby's due date.  Well, I gotta go.  It's about time to leach my plants, then I'm gonna head up to Lowe's to see if they have the Peter's violet food.  I was told they sometimes carry it.  I'll also be posting pics of my new noid and Irish Flirt! 

Happy Easter!

 

Well, after I leached my plants yesterday, I ran up to Lowe's and guess what!  They had the Peter's (urea-free) AV fertilizer!  I'm so happy!  I started all of my plants on it today.  I can't wait to see how it does for my plants.  I'm on the look-out for another urea-free fertilizer.  This one is an orchid fertilizer 20-10-20.  I was told it was great for young plants, but it seems like it would be really good to use while disbudding too.  I also put a quarter of one of those mosquito cakes in the fertilizer water.  I read somewhere that someone does this to get rid of fungus gnats and I'm hoping it'll do the same for me.  If not, I'll just have to buy some DE and start using it in the potting mix.  I'm thinking about doing that anyway, but I've heard it's sharp...I'm not sure if I'll have to wear gloves to avoid getting little splinters in my fingers.  And what about breathing it in?  Seems like it could be bad stuff. 

I still have so many things I wanna get.  The other fertilizer I'm looking for, FC2, 2" pots, 3" pots, lights for the bottom shelf of my stand, and more things that I can't remember right now!  When I first started doing research on violets, I remember thinking that one really good thing about this hobby was that it wasn't expensive (I was thinking that the prices for violets themselves weren't expensive).  Two months later, I look at all the stuff that I've bought and the list of the things I still want, and roll my eyes at myself.  Oh well.

 

Project Noid:  Started both of the p.noids on the Peter's AV food today.  I believe the numbers are 12-36-14.  The leaves of the plants are still curled.  I believe this happened because they were outside and had been rained on by very cold rain.  They are still in total isolation though, until I'm absolutely positive that they don't have a more serious problem (mites).

Oh, what have I done?!  Yesterday while walking innocently through Wal-Mart's garden section, I passed by their new shipment of violets.  Well, I didn't exactly 'pass'...I kinda did a double-take and started loading my buggy!  I looked desperately for names, but there were none.  That only slowed me for a second, after all, there was a fantasy, there was a plant with girl leaves, there's one with a green edge!  Types of violets that up until now I've only seen pictures of.  Six of them came home with me.  *Sigh*  I guess it really could have been worse.  Had they had names, I probably would have bought every name that I didn't have yet.  So, last count, I have 22 plants, of which only 5 are named.  Does it matter?  I haven't decided yet.  Oh, well, I'm happy .  We'll see how I feel when I want more named varieties and don't have any room left. 

 

Anyway, after repotting all of my new violets, I squirted them with SuperThrive (3 drops per quart).  I have yet to insert their wicks...that will happen after dinner.  For now, new pics are in my photo album (Noids K1-P1).

After I got up this morning, I started going through some archives on another forum and I believe I may have figured out why my plants' centers still seem to be 'tight and brittle' and leaves on some of the plants are a lime green color.  I believe that at first I was over-fertilizing, but after leaching them, I gave them a month off of fertilizer and just started using the Peter's AV in the last week or so.  Well...turns out that SuperThrive can cause the same thing!  And that one tiny little baby who's center is a brown color...also can be caused by SuperThrive!  Will I ever stop hurting my poor poor plants?  I SuperThrived the new ones that I just bought last week.  They're currently on a water-only diet, so I should be able to tell for sure if/when they start growing funky if it really is the SuperThrive that's messing up my plants.  Guess I'll just save the SuperThrive for outside plants.

 

Going through those same archives, I came across several discussions on FE.  I've been wondering about this stuff for a while, but haven't bought any because of it's apparently horrendous smell.  After reading all the rave reviews, though, I went to a few stores looking for it.  Wouldn't you know it, when I go to buy some, I couldn't find a single bottle anywhere!  I know I've come across the Alaskan brand a few times, but couldn't for the life of me find it today.  Oh, well, I also heard about seaweed extract which hopefully does the same thing without the smell.  On the other hand, I did find another urea-free orchid fertilizer whose numbers are close to the one I was looking for last week.  The numbers are 19-8-16.  This should be a good fertilizer for growing babies, rooting leaves, and helping my plants get healthy after all the things I've done to them.  They're all disbudded right now, cause I want them to concentrate on foliage.  Hopefully the lower middle number will mean that I don't have to disbud constantly!  They're trying their hardest to bloom right now.  I'm finding it very difficult to constantly pick those bud off.  Gotta go for now.

I checked on my leaves yesterday and guess what!  I've got babies!!  My very first ones!  I'm so excited!  The only problem is...wouldn't you know I forgot to label their cup and when I put them down?  Oh, well, I'll just wait until they bloom for the first time!  Here in a few days I'm gonna put down some of my noid leaves using the texas-style potting to see how that works out.  I'm also still trying to figure out the rules (if there are any) for importing plants.  I thought of a few more stores today that I haven't checked for FE.  Hopefully after work tomorrow I'll have time to go check them out.  Wish me luck!

Finally got some FE today.  The only size I could find were 1 gallon jugs.  Oh well, there are a lot of outside plants (neighbors included) who are gonna be benefitting from the left overs I have of this stuff.  I got the Alaskan brand (deodorized).  I gave it a sniff before buying and it didn't smell like fish, so maybe the smell won't be awful.  If so, oh well, I'll make sure to only use it on Saturday mornings.  That should get Chris outta bed pretty early .  I also ordered a jeweler's loupe off of ebay today.  It's a 30x loupe, and it was only 4.75!  Not too bad.  Hopefully it'll be here in a few days.  A girl on another forum said that she could see mites with hers.  I can't wait to look at my project noid with it.  If they do have mites, they're in the trash...no more project .

 

On another note, I've also been thinking about cutting some of my violets back in order to make more room (yes already).  As it is, I almost have no room for new plants.  At this rate, I'm only gonna be able to collect minis and semis for lack of space.  I don't know how I'd do with that.  Every time I handle little Irish Flirt, I'm afraid I'm gonna break it, it seems so tiny.  I know some people keep they're standards cut back and planted in 2.5" pots.  I may try it on a few to see how it works out.  Good thing I have so many noids .  Alrighty, I'm gonna go watch my movie.  Write again in a few days.

Tonight I decided to put some more leaves down, now that I've had a little bit of success!  About a week ago I bought some muffins at the grocery store, so I'm using the plastic container they came in for the leaves.  I think it's gonna work out well; there are six seperate little compartments.  I may have to go get more later .  The leaves I decided on are my named ones (for the most part), but I'm having a bit of a dilemma.  I put down Rosalie, Susi, Chico, Irish Flirt, and Noid K1 (double pink flowers that look like little roses over girl foliage), and I'm trying to decide on the final plant.  Should it be Margit (which is kinda plain looking) or Horacio?  I'm leaning towards Horacio.  I also have some babies that need to be repotted.  They were originally potted in little 2" clay pots, but they dry out entirely too fast.  They're gonna be repotted into 3 oz. solo cups.  I still haven't tried the texas-style for leaves or babies.  I'll have to do that one of these days. 

 

I also mixed up the first batch of that new orchid fert (appx 1/8 tsp per gallon) I bought a little while back.  Some of my newer noids are gonna be started on it this coming weekend.  I'm excited to see how it will do for them, since they need to concentrate on recovering.  I hope to see good results.  I'll probably also use the FE I bought for the first time this weekend.  Woohoo!  Gotta go finish up, it's getting kinda late.

 

PS.  Susi's putting up blooms, YAY!

I've been gone for a while 'cause Devon was born on the 15th.  Beautiful, healthy little boy! .  Nothing new is really going on with any of the plants, besides the fact that I'm letting a few of them bloom now.  It's nice to have flowers again!  I never did get to use that FE, and I can't right now cause family is visiting.  They know I'm a little bit nuts about these plants, but if I used it while they were here they might really start to question my sanity!  I have 2 orders for violets on the way, and another person is gonna send me some of her plantlets in May.  I'm so excited!  The vendors haven't shipped the plants yet because of the convention and I'm going nuts waiting.  I'm hoping they'll send them out tomorrow (Monday), but I doubt they'll get around to it so soon after the convention.  Maybe next week.

 

Project NOID:  I checked these plants with the loupe and didn't see any mites, but they still look very suspicious.  Their leaves are still really curled and they don't seem to be growing.  I'm gonna have to start keeping a better eye on them.  It can be hard to remember them because they're in isolation in the laundry room.  Sometimes they're lucky to get watered .

I got 2 orders in this week, woohoo!  I ordered Carnation Sprinkles, Ma's Wicked Witch, Emerald City, King David, and Smitten Kitten from Rob's (4 of the 5 have buds!), and I ordered leaves of Dean's Bunny Blue, Jupiter's Joy, Ness' Crinkle Blue, Precious Lavendar, Rob's Madcat, Rob's Outer Orbit, Rob's Smarty Pants, Silly Girl from Bluebird and got 3 gifts: Rob's Argyle Socks, Oksana, and Golden Eye!!  Unfortunately, I've already lost a few leaves.  I was so worried about losing them that I over-watered them when I put them down.  Hopefully the rest will make it and will give lots of babies!  I still have to repot the plants from Rob's.  Hopefully I'll have the time to do it today.  It's hard to find time to do anything when you're taking care of 2 babies . 

 

Oh, I almost forgot, I shipped out 2 boxes of leaves myself on Monday.  I should be hearing soon whether they made it ok or not.  And, no, I haven't got around to using the FE yet.  Soon...

The leaves I put in the plastic muffin pan are all still alive (Chico, Rosalie, Susi, K1), and I have since stuck leaves of Irish Flirt, Silly Girl, and Flashy Angel.  So far, I haven't lost a single leaf that I've put in the muffin pan, so I decided to buy some more yesterday.  I bought six.  Since I lost so many leaves the other way, I decided to replant my leaves from Bluebird in them today.  I lost Rob's Smarty Pants, Rob's Argyle Socks, Jupiter's Joy, and Silly Girl.  I still have Rob's Outer Orbit, Rob's Madcat, Precious Lavender, Golden Eye, Dean's Bunny Blue, Ness' Crinkle Blue, and Oksana, though all of them don't look good.  Some of the best looking leaves still don't have roots and I put them down on April 30th!!  I think I was keeping them too dry?  I dunno.  I'm still waiting for babies on the leaves I put down in early April.  I think I'll start foliar feeding them once a week.  Although I've lost so many leaves, I put in 2 more orders!  I know, I'm crazy.  Hopefully I'll keep having luck with the muffin pans, or I may try peat pellets.  I know of someone who swears by them.  Maybe they'll work for me too.

 

I'm still trying to figure out what I'm doing wrong with my adult plants.  They still have scrunched centers and reaching leaves.  My lights are 14 inches above the plants, but they are blooming, so I didn't think that lack of light was the problem.  I'll have Chris lower the lights in the next few days.  I'm also gonna go buy a soil ph test kit.

 

I joined the local club officially this weekend.  They are really nice people.  A few of them go to the convention every year and have some really nice photos of all the beautiful plants.  If ph and lights turn out to not be the problem, I'm gonna take one of my plants to the next meeting to see if they can help me.  Well, gotta run.

Got to spend some time in my plant room today (yay!).  I filled everyone's resevoirs(sp)  and game them a (very) quick grooming. I threw out some of the noids that haven't been doing well for me, and I'm gonna save a few more to give away when they come into bloom again.  I took some time out to clean the room and organize it a bit, too.  I feel so much better when I walk in to see my plants now.  Instead of seeing a mess, I see plants sitting on an organized stand.  I still have some pots and reseviors to wash, but I'll have to do that later tonight.  I also gave everyone a bit of FE today.  This is the first time I've had a chance to use it, and I can't wait to see the great results everyone talks about.  It doesn't smell great, but it's not bad either.  I still have to wonder what the un-deodorized stuff smells like; very unpleasant I'm sure.  I did forget to water my laboring leaves, so I'll have to do that later, too.  When I do that, I'll have to take stock, to see how many plants I have left.  Dang...I also forgot to ask Chris to lower my lights a few inches.  It's hard to keep up with things when you've got 2 (extremely cute) babies to take care of :D.

 

Project NOID: I threw one of these guys out today, since I'm expecting (many) more leaves.  The one that got tossed was the smaller of the two.  They had both been putting on new growth since being placed in the window in our room.  The survivor had a few of it's outer leaves removed.  A lot of the older leaves have scars and such.  I didn't remove them earlier because I wanted to see new growth first.  Hopefully I'll be able to move it to the stands soon.  I wanna see this baby bloom again!

Yesterday I bought a soil ph test kit at Lowe's and I tested the soil from 2 of my worst looking plants last night.  I tested with different kinds of water (filtered, tap, and fertilizer water) and all of the readings said 6.0.  This is a little too low, so I'll be heading back to the store to pick up some dolomite lime.  When I pulled the plants out of their pots, they seemed too wet, so I think I'll start mixing more perlite into my mix.  I'm gonna try the new mix on the 2 plants that I tested, since they're the worst-afflicted and they're both noids (though they're also a couple of my favorite noids).  Well, we'll see how it goes. 

Went back and got the dolomite lime today (all 40 pounds of it!), and mixed up a batch to try on 2 of my noids, B1 and E1.  I also added more perlite to the mix, because I was told that they may be staying too wet.  I potted B1 down to a 2 1/4" pot because it's so small now.  Monster (e1) stayed in the 4" even after all of the leaves I took off.  I set my new light timer for 12 hours, so hopefully the plants will start relaxing.  I'll dust my lights tomorrow, and hopefully have Chris lower them in the next few days.  If they aren't looking better in 2 weeks, I'll assume that too much light is the culprit and lower the time on the timer.

 

Here are the exact numbers for the mix I'm trying:

 

1.5 parts coarse perlite

1 part vermiculite

1 part peat

1/2 TBS dolomite lime

 

Altogether, this makes almost a gallon of mix.  I hope I didn't add too much lime, but I'll be finding out.  The plants will be on pure water for 2 weeks, then weak fertilizer.  If I don't see improvement in a month, I'll re-check the ph of the soil.

 

 

Chris set up a new shelf with new lights a few days ago!  Woohoo!  I traded one of the new bulbs for one of the slightly older ones and the lights are only on for 5 hours a day now.  I'm doing it this way because I'm trying not to burn any of my plants. 

 

One of my plants (Peppermint Girl), hasn't been looking so good lately so I decided to take her out of her pot and see what was going on.  She had root rot!  I tried to take all of the rotted spots off, but she was rotted all the way to the crown.    Rob's Tippy Toes wasn't looking too good either, so I did the same to him.  This one only had a small rotted spot but I took off all the roots anyway.  I also took all the suckers off, scraped the neck, and dusted with rooting powder.  All 3 are now sitting in a mini-terrarium made by two clear plastic cups.  I hope they make it.  I guess I'm gonna have to lighten up my mix.  When I mixed it this time, I put 2 parts perlite instead of just one.  I checked all of my other plants for signs of rot and these 2 seem to be the only ones that were afflicted.  I'm gonna keep a really close eye on all of them, though, just in case.  I always hear about how AV's like to be pot-bound, but you never really hear why.  I believe it is because when they are pot-bound, they use the water in the mix constantly, so they're pretty dry.  I'm sure others have figured this out, but it was a revelation for me . 

 

One of my newly repotted noids is relaxing a bit now that it's outta direct light, so I believe too much light was it's problem.  The other though is reaching as much, if not more, than it was before.  I've been wondering for a while if this noid is actually Rhapsodie Clementine.  I heard through the grape-vine that Rh. Clementine has to have tons of light, so that's what I'm gonna try next.  It would make sense; this plant has extremely dark leaves with red backs, so we'll see.  Another of my noids is opening it's first bud.  I believe it's N1.  It's grown a lot since I got it in April, though it's still pretty small.  It's also very symmetrical.  I'll have to take a picture for the album when it's in full bloom. 

 

I got one order of my leaves last week, and I'm expecting the other order any day now.  I put half of the leaves from the first order in the muffin pans, and planted half TX style.  I plan on doing the same with this next order.  I've had a NOID leaf planted TX style since the end of May and it seems to be doing well.  Crossing my fingers that I get lotsa babies from all these leaves!