NVM, found it in my notes from a presentation Mel Grice had at TAVS.

Clorox 1:10 Water. With a couple of drops of dish soap. Soak 5 minutes.

She uses Dawn on the podcasts, so that is what I use, but I don't actually use it on AVs, just on dishes. She says you can use any brand. But I thought if Dawn works for her, I will continue to use it. It is highly concentrated, so you need only a drop. I think Irina used to use clorox diluted but not sure about the soap. I think Annie on the pods uses just the soapy water and not the clorox. But I could be wrong. (I don't use either, I just rinse the leaf with filtered water if it seems to need it. I often float the leaves in filtered water and sugar to revive, but that is not a disinfectant. ) Joanne

Thanks Joanne, I used to keep a bottle of dawn on hand just for that.

I found soil mealies and have to restart a lot of plants, but don't want the bugs to come back. Rather lose a plant than keep the bugs, so I think I will try the bleach....

Oh, that is too bad. I hate mealies as they can take out a collection rapidly. Some people put a little Marathon into the soil. I have done that when repotting. I forgot this time. I've just been on a "Marathon" of repotting nearly everything. That time of year. A little ... or a lot ... every day. Worst is that even with all the plants I have, I don't know what babies I can have ready and in bloom for a sale in late Sept. Any thoughts on rapid growing plants? I have the Optimara's covered, have enough of those. I want something that will make people (general public) BEG to join our club! I have a bunch of all of one variety because someone mixed up the tags at a recent plant sale, so what I bought as all different plants are all the same. I hope it is pretty as I now have six of them. I am piggy backing on this thread as I no longer know how to start a new thread now that I changed how I view the posts. Joanne

yeah, many people keep saying i should add bonide or marathon granules... i don't really want to order them, DH would have a fit.

as for plants for the sale... thinking...

alan's fallen angel is a lovely semi trailer, it does well as long as you don't let it dry out. for me, it shows a bunch of aspects the "general public" don't know about african violets - it is variegated, longifolia, and a trailer. if the blooms were any fancier it would be too much ;-p

actually, any of the mini trailers i've had grow and bloom freely (except for brazo's belle and sunnyvale trail - both of which i killed grooming somehow.)

else, i'd say go with minis. they are cute :-) and cute always sells.

i brought a rob's scooter to the sale (didn't realize it would have been good enough to go in the show) it was gone before i could blink. i have a sucker planted and it has 2 rows of leaves, and 5 bloom stalks coming up. i hate to think i should be re-rooting it... it was on the mat watered mealy-tray for two days only. i may just take leaves and observe the plant. same with shirl's cranberry smoothie. lovely plant. blooms freely for me and the variegation is quite consistent. not having much luck propagating it though.

september is a bit close for leaf starts though. unless yours are much faster than mine....

Karin

oh, and btw. new threads... it isn't actually labeled, but at the top of the page, there is the field where you can create a new thread: (red circle for illustration purposes only ;-) )

just fill in the title line, add your content in the bigger box, and hit "post" :-)

it is there for me no matter what format i look at...

Karin

HI, great ideas, people love minis and trailers grow fast. I wondered about angel, it sounds nice but i don't like the name, i don't like anything with a devilish name, unfortunately. I cannot count on leaf starts as i have some leaf starts that are nine months old and only now getting to the small plantlet stage. so i will have to go with small plants. that place to enter a topic was always where i did before, but it has disappeared now that my format has changed to that ugly computer graphic for the first post. i won't try to figure it out today. j

that rob's scooter i have was a 2 leaf sucker in december... so maybe see if you can plant suckers instead of leaves...

Maybe do a search on the forum for whatever Linda may have suggested a couple of years back, as I know she likes to be organic. Irina on the other hand was ok with using marathon and was the one who told me how to apply it.

I got a small bottle of marathon granules at the garden center. Around here, people try to be organic but that doesn't always work.

by soil mealies, I take it you mean the ones that spin that sticky white cocoon?

Sorry to hear you have mealies, my sympathies. Hope the bleach works. Joanne

Karin, great suggestions! I am passing them along to the people in my club who make these decisions. They usually love trailers and minis. Joanne

Thanks cleangeek! I just washed my shelves and my hands still smell of bleach hours later - no way would I expect my plants to survive that!

Joanne, soil mealies leave dusty white powder (some call it webbing) in the soil. Most visible around the inside of the pot. I understand they are less likely to spread than mites or thrips but that isn't saying much. They travel on the mat or tray so everything has to be moved to separate saucers. I was told to "grease" the rim of the saucers with Vaseline - that supposedly catches them if they try to spread. I am re - starting everything on that shelf with cuttings in fresh soil. bleaching the pots and keeping everything separate.

Still there is a chance they may "hide" on a cutting. Keeping them isolated from each other should increase the chances of retaining a couple of clean ones .

The worst plants so far have been duplicates, so they got tossed.

Hey, one can always hope ;-)

Karin.

I add diatomaceous earth from Lowes to all my potting mix. It's supposed to prevent any bugs and larvae in the soil. It's recommended on Dr. Optimara and other sites. I use 2 Tbs to 8 qts of soil mix. I know it's a PITA but I use individual reservoirs for each of my plants except babies. Mealies and other crud spread easily in water.

I know this is going to get big boos but I use Miracle Grow AV mix and MG perlite. I started buying them because they're all that's available locally but I kept buying them because I've never had any unwelcome visitors come with them. I just wait awhile to start fertilizing. Things seem to root really well in MG too.

Hi, Thanks! I heard the word used at a recent club meeting. I had asked about using the worm casings. I was told not to use them but to use the d. earth. I was unfamiliar with the term and there was no opportunity to ask. So it is good you brought it up. I also use separate reservoirs.

I use MG if that is all that is available.* People have concerns about MG because it has increased its ammonia content. There is an address on the bag in Ohio. I was thinking of writing them to ask their opinion of hurting the violets using this long term.

*If I don't have any ordered through the mail from a vendor.

Joanne

Karin, Too bad you have to go through all that but at least you caught them. The kind of mealy bug I was thinking of is a different one. It spins a little white cocoon around itself and sucks the juices out of the plant material. Maybe what the club member has is soil mealy, as I could not imagine fighting the other one for 2 years. The plants would have been long gone. J

Yeah, there are two kinds. Foliar and soil. And apparently they aren't related. Go figure.

I couldn't get perlite at lowes yesterday, (they were all out), and I refused to stand in line at yet another store for MG perlite. So I am re-rooting everything in straight vermiculite. Cross your fingers! Never used vermiculite before and it sounds like a recipe for disaster. Though, if you can root stuff in water, that would be even more wet ;-p

Joanne, as for posting new threads, if you're on a mobile device (phone or tablet) you should see a green button at the top "ask a question" - that's where they hid the box you see on "normal" computers...

Karin

I relearned how to post a new thread. I would not use vermiculite to root. I think it suffocates the stems. I would use straight peat or MG potting mix before I would use vermiculite. Water circulates but vermiculite chokes, in my experience. Joanne

As of yet it's still nice and fluffy. I sifted out the small bits. Soaked it, filled the pots and put them on newspaper to drain the excess. Planted the leaves and put them in a shoe box (rimmed with Vaseline, to catch stray bugs before spreading if there are any). I don't plan on watering again for a few months. So I think it should work....

Do keep us posted!