That is a very cute plant. I would also like to know the variety!

Why don't you remove those damaged leaves? They arent helping the plant at all, and removing them would improve the overall appearance.

You should see me at the gardening center, surrounded by an entire greenhouse of plants, and Im obsessively removing all the old or fading flowers/leaves. LOL

â¢Posted by Lauraeli none (My Page) on Mon, May 12, 14 at 17:52

For the first 3 months, those ugly leaves were everything the AV had. Those are like mother leaves for the plant. They are still firm and living. I am so reluctant to remove them. To my eyes, they add a sense of complex history to the AV :-) Certainly from a pure botanist view, the leaves can be safely removed for a neat look.

Well, I suppose as long as it doesnt bother you, there's no harm in keeping them on :-)

Damaged, fading leaves should be removed from a healthy plant as they are a drain on the plant's resources. The roots must support them and they are not producing as much as the younger leaves. It is much more than just a neat look.

In a plant that is struggling, damaged leaves are better than no leaves so you were correct in leaving them on until the plant regained its strength.

Your violet needs a smaller pot, especially after the outer leaves are removed.

And, since I'm anal about these things (!!!), Botany is the study of plant classification, not growing. That is a Horticulturist's job.

Linda

Could that be a Silverglade hybrid?

Why do you believe it is not Optimara?

I don't know if Silverglades are sold in stores.
I don't know if I have ever seen one in real life but I have seen pictures on the web.

â¢Posted by whitelacey 6 (My Page) on Mon, May 12, 14 at 23:18

Linda, I pulled out a picture from last December. I think this picture was taken after I bought it for 2-3 weeks. You can see that the self-watering pot was large but I managed the soil to be slightly dry. The plant survived to the shape in the first post, just fine.

Image: the same AV in December 2013

Your plant looks very healthy now. You have taken good care of it :-)

If you did put it in a smaller pot, it might flower more.

You can remove it and look at the size of the root ball. If it has filled its pot, I personally wouldnt downsize. But if there is a lot of loose dirt around the root ball, that makes it easy to move to a smaller pot.

If it isn't an optimara, could it be anthoflores? They seem to be up and coming in my area (duh, they are only grown an hour from here) so it is a real toss up these days on whether you find an optimara or anthoflores variety in whichever store you go to...

Karin

Oops, some say it looks like:

optimara-little-seneca

The pictures I see of Little Seneca are darker.
Is that pink tinge darker down the center of the petal. I thought of Silverglades Moon but I don't know much about these things
In one photo, the flowers look almost white, in others, slightly pink.
What is the reverse?

This post was edited by lucky123 on Tue, May 13, 14 at 16:19

â¢Posted by lucky123 7 (My Page) on Tue, May 13, 14 at 16:18

The older picture has more light exposure. So, the "white" is the reflection of the light. The flowers have no white portion. The real color of the flowers is a uniformed pale pink - it is like the color of a pink bunny or a light pink cotton candy. Yes, close to the center, the color deepens to a normal pink level.

That is a beautiful pink in the first photos. Now if you could just find that in a blue.

You've done a great job! Very impressive! Isn't it sad what the stores do to what were originally beautiful plants?

Lucky,

Silverglades aren't around much anymore. I have never seen them in stores. Silverglades were out of Africa and I think the hybridizer's name was Sylvia Harrison. They were all the rage for a while and then they just went away. It makes me wonder if something happened to the hybridizer.

Linda

This post was edited by whitelacey on Tue, May 13, 14 at 23:52

Linda,

I believe I read that Sylvia Harrison had died. If you wanted, I could probably track down where I read it. I agree that they were never sold in stores unless in was in South Africa and I can't say about it there but I'm doubtful. (I believe it was South Africa.) Her web page may still be up.

I've tried in vain to find any obituary information for Irene Fredette although I'm reasonably certain that she's is dead.

Diana

I believe I saw this same AV at Walmart yesterday, and thought of this post! I didnt buy it because it was big, and not on sale.

I found reference to Irene Fredette passing away in the early 1980's. The AVSA honored her in 1984 at which time she was listed as deceased.

So far, I haven't found anything definite on Sylvia Harrison, but the general consensus is that she is also gone.

Terri

Thanks, Terri. It's not that I thought she was living; it's just that I found it strange that I couldn't find any reference to her passing.

The consensus seems to be that Sylvia Harrison passed away although there seems to be no details. Her US site is still there on that awful Angelfire.

I've been tempted, but never tried any of the Silverglades.

Diana

I have several of the Silverglades and so far am happy with them, but then again, they're still young.

Do keep us posted!
The flowers look unusual. I read that the leaves can be
unruly. Is that so?
Joanne

I had heard the same thing about S. Harrison. It's been so long though, I don't know any details. I remember she was out of South Africa. Beautiful plants.

Linda

It grows really fast. Here is an update:

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Nice looking plant!

It really doesn't need those old leaves anymore now ;-)

Omg! Love it I am starting to notice I have a preference for the darker leaves. And the flowers are such a delicate shade of pink! It's almost as cute as a puppy...and so much easier to care for :-3

Plus they don't chew up your shoes,

Juju,

Your violet is gorgeous EXCEPT FOR THOSE DEAD LEAVES!!!!

Don't make us come over there and take them off for you!!!

Linda

*reaches over and snaps off those dead leaves* :P

Looking good so far. Looks like an Optimara to me. But as far as what variety, it would be anyone's guess. You can try looking up their website. To be honest if you've found the violet at a big box store 99% chance it is either an Optimara variety or some other highly common violet company from Canada.

Only on extreme rare occasions have I seen named varieties offered. And these were non optimara varieties. One time at a Menards! (Midwest big name hardware/one-stop-shop) And yes they were marked with their names on a tag. Quite a find that I've only seen once.

This post was edited by fieldofflowers on Fri, May 23, 14 at 5:02

You say it grows really fast, so I looked at the time/date of your initial post... If there are really only 5 days between those photos, you gotta tell me: WHAT ARE YOU FEEDING THAT THING? :-p

Karin

Karin,

Thanks for the comment. My AVs grow leaves pretty fast if not blooming. Feeding is not as important for plants as for humans. For plants feeding is more or less like humans taking vitamin pills, but not like eating for humans.

Here is an update:

(To illustrate the transparent pink, I controlled the light. But the camera automatically changed its lenses .. so some photos are darker and others look lighter. The first one, however, the camera got it correctly. That is how it looks like.)

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