I am fairly new to growing AVs and could use some advice.

I have about 20 assorted violets that I obtained in the Spring after joing my local AV society, and after reading the forums here I planted them in appropriate size pots in equal amounts of a coarse vermiculite, peat, perlite mix. I have been careful to wick water them with a mix of 1/4 tea spoon of non-urea AV fertilizer ( Jack's Classic Bloom Booster 10-30-20 - from J. R. Peters, Inc.) per gallon of water. I placed them in an east facing window.

In the Spring my AVs seemed to be doing very well, growing and blooming. However, when Summer arrived I noticed that they did not seem to be doing quite as well, and in fact I noticed that they were starting to look worse and worse every week. The Avs stopped growing and stopped blooming. I also noticed that the centers were getting very tight and the leaves had a yellowish color.

I initially suspected cyclamen mites, but I also realized that the tight centers and yellowish color could be from too much light, as I had noticed that the outer leaves were curling down around the edges of the pots. I also noticed that they were receiving much more direct morning sunlight in the Summer than they had received in the Spring. So I decided to move some of the violets from the east window and place them in north facing windows to see if this would help. After a few weeks I noticed that the AVs that I had moved to the north windows were looking a little better. The centers were starting to grow out some and were becoming more green looking than before.

I then decided to build a light stand to put all my violets under so I would have better control over the light that they receive, and I now have them on my light stand.

The shelves of my light stand are 51 inches long and 26 inches deep. I installed two 4 foot fixtures per shelf. Each fixture has T-12 40 watt tubes (1 warm and 1 cool fluorscent tube per fixture). The fixtures are ajustable and the tubes are now hanging 10 - 12 inches above the plants. I have been burning the lights about 9 hours a day since all the tubes are new and are currently very bright. I plan to slowly increase the light time over the next several months as the tubes become less bright to about 12 hours a day.

I have had the violets under the lights for several weeks now, and althought the leaf color is definitely looking greener I still can not see much improvement in the growth and bloom rate.

I am wondering about how long it should take before I am seeing some significant improvement as it relates to plant growth and bloom rate. At the rate that my violets are currently growing it seems like it might take years before I will be getting the results that others hear speak of. I have noticed that the baby violets(Blackberry Jam and S. Veluntina)that I recently leaf propagated and transplanted to individual pots seem to be doing quite well under the lights, but my older AVs do not seem to be responding much, if at all, other than the greener leaf appearance.

Someone here had mentioned a "culture change" and its affects on AVs. Is there anything else that I could be missing that has caused my violets to take a turn for the worse since the Spring and now be responding so slowly? How long should it take for me to see a significant change in the growth and bloom rate now that I have them under lights? Or is this normal for Avs that have been moved from natural to artificial light?

Any comments and suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

Curtis