Hi,

Since no one else has commented on this I thought I would give it a try. I will have to admit that I am also confused about Rachel's watering method. I think your guess is as good as any though. It seems that she is putting those plastic salad trays in another tray that has an inch of water in it.

It is a much different method than I have never been told to use. My suggestion would be to give it a try with just a few leaves and see if it works for you. At least that's what I would do. I wouldn't risk a lot of leaves on something that I hadn't done before.

Good luck,

Larry

Thank you Larry. I will do as you advised. I now have a bunch of leaves for experimenting.
A word about "posting pics"... I've done it. Thanks again for your kind reply.

Hi Everyone

I sent a copy of Haxuan's thread to Rachel and asked to help us understand her method.

Cork

Hello Haxuan. You remind me so much of myself and my mom during my AV growing years in the Philippines. We would just try anything to prove to the gardening people in PI then that AV can grow, bloom and survive in PI. We had to go through a lot of work and disappointments but eventually did prove them wrong. I guess Vietnam's weather conditions would be very similar to PI with 70-90% humidity outside. From my experience, you can practically start AV leaves anyway you want it there. Just be sure that you have very good air circulation to prevent rot or fungus from getting into your plants because of the high humidity. I've started leaves using finely chopped green moss, finely chopped fern bark chips, coco fiber, rice hulls, pure perlite, water, different mixtures of these materials and even the paper towel method and they all did fine. In fact that I think was the fun part about it, experimenting and learning what would work well for you and your growing conditions. Good Luck and happy planting!

Hi Everyone

Here is the reply I received from Rachel.

Hello Cork
Nice to hear from you. I am sorry if I was not clear on the web site. This was just a convenient way to grow my leaves. Now I just find a tray that has enough depth to sit your little pots in. Pour water in the tray until it has about an inch of water keeping that level until you see the mouse ears. I like to sit them in a tray because I don't have to worry about the humidity. If the pots are sitting in water like that it would surely be enough humidity for the leaves. I wick the little pots right away (when you first set your leaves) Then when you see the little mouse ears you can lift them up out of the tray and put them on individual reservoirs. Without disturbing them at all.
I hope this helps.
Happy growing!
Rachel

It sounds to me the leaves are almost started in water? My experience has been that too much water (in the soil mix) tends to rot leaves.
What have you experienced??
Cork

Cork

I have experience "rooting" leaves in water but will have to pot it up before the plantlets emerge otherwise they will rot on me. This method gave me a 50/50 success because the tiny roots were very brittle and gets damaged ones I pot them up. The watered tray method is very good if u need humidity though. I would put some pebbles on it and place my potted leaf on it without the water touching the bottom of the pot. Or u can put the potted leaf on top of an inverted pot so it won't be sitting on water. I would also sometimes put a wick on it but I put a little bit more perlite on the mix when I do this.

A big hats off and thanks to Cork for contacting Rachel about clarification of her rooting methods.

There are several different ways for starting leaves and many times it is best to experiment with several different methods to see which is best for you. What works for one person may not be best for another under different growing conditions.

I have started leaves in water and for many years that was the only way I knew how, with some success. Now I start the leaves in slightly dampened potting mix, place under domes, and beneath lights. I find this works best for me, but that's not to say other methods aren't as good.

I do have rotting problems if the potting mixture is too wet to begin with, so this is probably caused from keeping in a tight container when the mix is too heavy from water. I have also used half perlite/half vermiculite, mixed together, but still prefer using potting mix.

So keep experimenting and have fun making babies!! :)

Elaine

Thank you everyone for clarifying my question. I'm just back from a long Tet holiday (Lunar New Year).
I'd like to share with you my findings about starting leaves .
Here's what I have done:
I started with two methods: (1) I placed the leaves directly into a kind of soil my farmer-neighbor uses for starting vegetable seeds.I didn't have perlite or vermiculite at that time. Then I placed the tray in a shaddy place and mist every day. After about 4 months, two of the four leaves started to have babies. Another leave rotted but the stalk stayed alive and gave some babies. Up to now, I have potted ten babies from these leaves started directly in soil.
(2) I also put three leaves in water. I placed this glass of water on the window sill. The leaves had roots after about two months... and babies showed up after another month. But the babies have not grown. So just last week, I repotted the leaves (with babies) into perlite+vermiculite mix. I will check and see what happens to them next time I visit my holiday home.
Because I cannot tend the leaves myself between visits, I'm sticking to the methods that proved successful so far eventhough I really wanted to try "Rachel's method".

I have rooted about twenty leaves of miniature/semi mini's in vermiculite in a terrarium with 70% humidity. I have only put a few drops of water at 6 weeks. Almost 100% of the leaves have quite a few babies which appeared at 4-6 weeks and are doing well at 10 weeks. I tried the same in a porous peat mix and nothing happened and no rotting. I am now trying vermiculite 60%, pearlite 35& and sphagnum peat 5% with 40% humidity. All of the above are getting strong lighting and 75-80 F temp. Rob's Violets say almost pure vermiculite works very well.

Ivan