Korina -

where have you been? Why you were hiding from us?

I do not believe that Ph 7 is an issue. Should be something else. If you think it is water - what is a report on solids? If I remember right - if you have 80-150 mg of solids (salts) in a liter of water - you are OK - if you have 700 - your plants will die right now and your kidneys will be producing stones. High solids I think come from well water with limestone bordered aquifer in a low rainfall area. Usually your water district has these data.

We cannot let you wither without violets. How about if you have a small collection of minis - and buy your water in a store in a gallon jug - some kind of "Spring water" cheapest brand, not distilled.

Tea.. it will be a weak organic fertilizer. I would think should be OK. Just try on 1 plant first.

What about your soil and fertilizer you use now? Anything out of ordinary?

Missed you

Irina

A little pinch of baking soda will do the trick with PH. Its been working with me. I had been having a fertilizer issue. Since I've downsized the amount I put in the water, water with plain water more often and repot more often, I've had a lot better results with my plants. Hang in there. You will find soemthing that works for you too!
tish

I would wonder if a 7pH would be a problem, Korina. If I have learned this correctly, isn't the final pH to the plant a combination of the water and the soil mix? My water is also 7 coming out the tap, but when I check the pH of my soil (mixed with water), it's 6.3 or so (I think, I haven't check it recently, maybe it was 6.5, but it was in a range that was fine).

Tish-

baking soda is alkaline. A little pinch will possibly do nothing - may be change it from Ph 7 to Ph 7.1 - wrong direction.

Korina - Lath is right - if you mix you Ph 7 water with Ph 6 soil and who knows what fertilizer....It is still in a good range.

Irina

Er, I currently have two plants, one in hydroculture, one still in soil.

After the great disaster of '08, wherein I threw out all 73 ailing plants, I just stayed away. It's been a year and I miss them, so I thought I'd try again. The two, Pixie Blue and Opt. IsaBelle, are an experiment; if I can grow them, I'm jumping back in with both feet. If not, at least I tried.

BTW, does anyone know what happened to Faye Wagman? Again?

Hi, Korina,

I'm glad to see you are ready to get back into the addiction.

Fay is dealing with some health issues and consequently takes a little longer to get her orders done. I saw her at the NY show two weeks ago, and she is still as sweet as ever. I see that she isn't taking any more orders for the rest of the year.

I know you love the mini's, and I have started to do minis too. As my standards wax and wane, I am not replacing with any more standards.

I told you when you lost all your plants that you had a whole forum of people that were ready to replace your stock when you are ready. I am sending you an e-mail.

Barbara

FYI--I placed an order w/Faye on Sept 30th, and received it very quickly.Everything is doing quite well, and I look forward to placing another order in the spring.

I have Faye's web site at 'myviolets.net' bookmarked, but it appears to be gone. Did she move again? I'm sorry about her health issues; I can sympathize.

Fay Wagman's new site:

http://www.violetventure.com/catalog/

Click below for Fay's site. I think she moved it to have a better buying experience for the customer.

Korina, how devastating to throw away that many plants. It sounds like you might not be completely sure what happened to them. Starting with a few, as you are doing, is a very good idea. Once you have those as long as you had the ones that started to decline, you'll know if you've resolved it or if you still need to find a solution.

I hope you're successful in resolving it. As Barbara said, there are many people who are more than willing to share.

Here is a link that might be useful: Fay's Site

Thanks guys -- I just returned from a drool-fest at Fay's new site. (sigh)

Lathyrus, they didn't start to decline, they never grew properly. Some dealt with it better than others, but they all eventually stopped growing with brittle crowns and no or distored flowers. It was grim.

Pixie Blue, the last crown of the last plant I bought, seems to be doing well in hydroculture; the crown is soft, and it's putting out lots of roots.

Opt. IsaBelle seems to have aphids. (facepalm) 'Scuse me while I go grab the rubbing alcohol.

Korina, a thought....the ph will depend on what type of tea you are using. I just googled 'what is the ph of tea' and got an answer, with the caveat that it depends on the tea. Give it a try.

Do the clay balls give a ph reading at all?

Barbara

Huh. They never did well at all. That's a difficult one, isn't it? Well, sounds to me as if you are doing all the right things in terms of process - you're starting out small and figuring out how to resolve it before you go through that heartbreak again. I imagine that there are multiple possibilities for your symptoms.

Do you have an extension service anywhere close to you? They can be exceptionally helpful, even running tests to help you figure things out.

Are you doing both in hydroculture or one that way and one in a soil mix?

Try using a fertilizer made for Azaleas and Rhodies, acid loving plants. Miracid perhaps. Used Coffee grounds may help as well.

Lathyrus, thanks, but I've already been through this. It's pH.

Tommy, I'll check that out, thanks. Used coffee grounds are an excellent source of nitrogen, for your *outdoor* plants. They need garden soil to decompose -- the whole point of a soilless mix is to avoid all those soil critters.

Thanks for everyone's kindness.

Korina

Id bore you to tears if I told you everything I know about PH with water changing and Ph with soil changing tatics.

I do however enjoy teas from all over the world. I have to point out that for the many teas as there are out there some of them will vary in water with tea PH changing in as many ways as there are teas and thats with out sugar or lemon or any items of that nature.
I toss my used tea bags the same way as coffee grounds, outside! They both do a great job for water saving on lawns at best this tea with water idea would be a play and pray effort one that will be long lasting and perhaps pricy as you play.

I do know that backing soda will increase water Ph if you have a pool supply store get some of there test strips there just as accurate as a PH meter unless you have a PH meter that would be even better. Even once you got the right Ph with backing soda mix with water it will decrease on it's own faster when warmer, check this Ph befor useing it'll become second nature to you and not as expensive

tommy is right on the money for the plants he mentioned but you have an AV in no soil. Something says it's going to burn kill or at least shock the roots to me. As you mentioned you are no soil AV growing. The plants they mention are in outside soil the plants also have a very different NPK range over AVs

You might be interested in the sulfur found in the ferts they mention. Sulfur has it's own bag of tricks when it comes to PH water adjusting

Shucks I still bored yah
Be good
Wes

Wes; sorry, you didn't bore me.

The only problem I have with baking soda is that it has a very high salt content, which would kill everything except perhaps brine shrimp.

I drink black tea, no lemon or dairy or anything; that would be contaminating it! ;-) It won't get pricey as I can re-use my loose leaves and bags. First brew for me, second for the Avs. I've used diluted tea for a couple of waterings now, and so far, so good; no burning or shock.

I should test it with my pH tester (it's the liquid with the vial), but I think the color may interfere with the reading of the results. I suppose I should try it anyway. Tomorrow, I'll try it then.

Korina

Korina, forgive me as I am just trying to understand. What do you want to do with the pH? Increase it or decrease it?

My guess - in Nor. Ca - the water should be alkaline.

Thing is if you grow in 1:1:1 peat-perlite-vermiculite mix - peat's acidity takes care of it. And Korina tries to grow in semi-hydro leca stones - and it is totally different approach.

Korina - I read somewhere that a way to low the Ph is to put the regualr peat moss in a baggie and soak it in a water for violets. You can reuse it several times, you can put the peat in old pantyhose - more recycling - and a bag of a peat moss is definitely cheaper than Oolong.

Hugs and good luck with your experiments.

Irina

Lathyrus, my pH is 7. I need to lower it (make it more acidic) to around 5.8 - 6.5. Saintpaulia lives on temperate (warm year round) forest floors, so lots of decomposing (acidic) organic matter (good drainage and constant nutrition) and dappled (bright indirect) sunlight. See?

Thanks Irina. Oddly, our water is more acidic, probably because of all the forests, but the city neutralizes it.

The peat sounds like a good idea, but *still* no one in the entire county sells true peat moss. Go figure.

Again, *I'd* get the first cup of Oolong, the plants would get the dregs. ;-)

Korina

Korina, yes, you are absolutely right that saintpaulia need to have a pH around 5.8 to 6.5 (some references even say they can stand it to 7, and some species in the wild grow in a pH as high as 7.3, IIRC past research).

What I didn't understand is that you are not using a media that is lower than 7.0. Most of us do not need to lower our pH when our water is 7.0 because the final pH to the plant is a combination of water plus media. If you are using no media or a neutral media, that changes things. Forgive me if that was stated upthread; I didn't see it until Irina clarified that.

The reason I asked is because I was confused because baking soda does not lower it if it is 7.0 and I couldn't figure out why you said you couldn't use it because it was too salty. As Irina noted above, baking soda is base, not acid, so it wouldn't lower it regardless of the salt level.

Korina-Let me see if I can help you out a little bit as I have had aquariums for years. Baking soda is very alkaline and is most commonly used when you pH is to low when added to the water the pH will eventually stabalize in the area of 8.6. Even if you add only a little bit and test over time it will eventually continue to raise through buildup. That being said if you wish to lower your pH because you do not feel that your soil mix is acidic enough this may be the time to do some experaments. There are pH down products sold that are for aquariums (Sea chem has some great ones) and pools(these you could buy in bulk) the only problem I have with these is you have to treat the water, wait several days, test your water, and if its not right you potentially have to treat again to get the pH you want. It is tricky at best to make sure that the water has stabalized and the reading you are getting is accurate. You are fighting all the minerals in the water that help to buffer and stabalize it. Peat pellets are sold by aquarium dealers and can be used very effectivly to lower pH. I do not think that they are any different from the peat that we use in our potting mixes. All you have to do is place some in a container of the water you are using and over the coarse of time it will break down the buffers and lower your pH. The resulting water is very stable and not prone to the swings you get when raising the pH. The only thing I can recommend is to try it and see what you get. You could try peat in one container and your tea bags in another and see what you get. One other thing of note the RO water that you can get in the grocery store out of a machine has had everything removed and is to my knowledge very acidic because it has no minerals you could use it but I would think that you would have to add some trace minerals to your fertalizer regimine to prevent nutriant defecits. Hope this helps. If you need to contact me send me an email and I can try and walk you through some of this if you want. I know its hard in the beginning it took me years of experiments to figure out what I was doing as there was no one in my area to help me.

Ph Black Tea and water test results
H2O = spring plastic bottled water 16.9 Fl Oz at air temp 72 degrees Ph 6.8 befor adding tea
Tea = 1 bag Tazo Chai Organic Spiced Black Tea (testing reasons only)
Results in time of Ph readings after first 4 minutes of Ph tester being placed in
1 minute 6.6
5 minutes 6.5
15 minutes 6.3

30 minutes the tea looked so good I drank it at Ph 6.3
yes 1 bag of Tazo Black Tea will drop h20 ph as discribed above
your actuall results may vary in elapsed time total amounts of tea volume of water and temp hottter water works faster

Feed back a not so bad tea I score this Tazo black at 6 on the 1- 10 I Kind of wished you where drinking Darjeeling now (lol)

I also have a Saintpaulia never gave Tea watering a thought Thanks for bringing this nit pic item of mine to the aggenda I'll be doing this PH test with the required added fert now. Looks like we found a drink for our AV

Wes, how perfectly easy you made that seem! Can you take this to the next step, which is to use the same tea bag and brew a second cup? Korina indicated she wants to drink the first one, and then brew a second from the 'dregs' for the AV's. If you do that, what is the ph for the second brew?

Also, what type of ph tester do you have?

Too bad she didn't inquire about using tequila to down the ph. I'd a been way willing to experiment with that one!!

Thanks,

Barbara

day two with same tea bag left in same test container (tea cup) and same H2O pH of 6.8
Had no differeance in drop or incline of pH remaining constant at 6.8 for several hours
You can if you want get a pH test meter for water pH measuring use only.
I feel it would be outside advertising if I mention the one I use. The price ranges of a real good ones to top shelf are much lower than a mid price range soil pH test meter

A bit off topic but(in my opinion) the best science of Ph soil conditions are learnt in an art form of growing colored hydrangea as there flower colorings don't lie about Ph soil conditions

Great post Wesley!

&

Barbara, I think you can start that experiment on your own and get back with us! Might be a little harder coming up with the detailed ph readings.

tish

Tish,

I suspect the record keeping will get a little sloppy as the experiment goes on....

Barbara

I have found a way to drop pH 7.0 and higher water to pH 6.4 The technique is fast and very stable for a disired pH for a volume of 1 gallon of pH 7.0 to drop to 6.3-6.4
All of the products I used for this pH water droping test (other than the pH 7.0 tap water) are organic, have zero prior mentioning to African Violet growing techniques in the past 5O topics of threads.

I would share this info in this forum, however in part to conflicting views and opinions of those who grow AV's far better than I do, the sometimes/often misunderstood interpitations of readings some can often do. I think it would be best my results and collected information not be disclosed on a public forum with all due respect.

I'll just say I was cleaning some kind of pebbles with something else while drinking a cup of tea.

Korina: (in a nice manner) Drink and enjoy your tea as your not going to find the lowering of pH of H2O soultion anywhere in that cup.
My last idea on this subject: Other conciderations for you on teas. Teas also have N P K values they may conflict with the added growing ferts you use in growing your AV's

Wesley, thank you for going to the trouble of experimenting; I appreciate it. Um, about that tea... chai has lots of ingredients, only one of which is tea. That will affect your results. You need a straight black tea, Liptons or a breakfast tea.

I tried it and got indeterminate results. I have a little bottle I made up with fert and water with the tea; my pH tester has a vial that you fill half way with the water, put in three drops of reagent, shake, then compare the color against a chart. Sadly my vial of water was kind of amber; the reagent made it yellowish/greenish amber, so it's definitely acidic, I'm just not sure how much. The real indicator is that neither of my plants has yet developed tight, brittle crowns, and appear to be growing normally. So far...

Barbara, I like your hypothesis! Are you going to experiment? In the name of science, of course.

I do not think that pH Down is toxic. You can usually find baking soda without sodium at a health food store.
Carol

I found this link today and said hmmmmmm who would want to see this and not get bored lol

http://www.optimara.com/doctoroptimara/diagnosis.html

I think you'll get bored reading all of this link lol
but you are right it all happens at a good pH range