I am certainly not an expert but I use the Miracle Gro African Violet mix straight out of the bag and water, completely soak, everything once a week. My Colorado home has forced air heat and the thermostat is set to 60 deg night and 71 deg day. The pots sit on a tray of damp/wet sphagnum moss or a tray of pebbles with water not touching bottom of pots.

Do pebbles used in the bottom of a pot (to prevent soil from clogging the holes and improve drainage) need to be sterile or anything? Or would the rocks from the dollar store be fine as long as I rinse them?

The Miracle Grow soil as is stayed wet for >2 weeks, that's why i added the perlite. And its still staying damp enough that the plants that I haven't repotted are now growing white mold. The local nursery said that Scotts bought out Miracle Grow and cheapened the mix and the 2 soils I've experimented with since aren't any better. I keep my room low 60s at night at 70ish during the day too. I just added a light, hoping that my upright leaves will settle. Thanks for your input!

I only have nine African Violets and one Streptocarpus. All are in the Miracle Gro mix in plain plastic 4 inch pots. I don't put anything in the bottom of the pots...just the potting mix. I do keep the plants under fluorescent lights. Again, nothing fancy, just one warm white tube and one plain white tube.

Doug from Violet Showcase is still around - now he is selling his soil on ebay under "violetshowcase" . His soil is THE BEST for Colorado. Since I buy in 40 quarts bags - he lets me pick it up - and save on shipping. The main thing - he tests every batch - and corrects the Ph to 6.6 with dolomite, adds microelements, charcoal. No wetting agent, no wood chips, balanced amount of good quality loose peat, perlite and vermiculite, nothing milled and no preload of who knows what fertilizer. Love the guy and love his soil.

I started using Black Gold a couple of months ago & was pleased at the amount of perlite it already has. I tried it because of the earthworm castings it has & from past experience with adding that to a homemade mixture I think it improved overall growth. This is my opinion so I will continue using it & recommending it. Hope this is helpful.

Irina: guess that is TWO reasons for which I need to make a trip to Colorado, except Nebraska is in the way ...

Just order from Violetshowcase on ebay one time - you get some - you will see how good soil should look like and smell like.

Warm castings tea is wonderful for many reasons. But I am afraid to add worm castings straight to the soil - who knows what else is there. So I put some castings in a jar - and pour boiling water...then mix the stuff with the soil. I know I kill some very good bacteria this way.. - critters eggs too...

'Do pebbles used in the bottom of a pot (to prevent soil from clogging the holes and improve drainage) need to be sterile or anything?'

Putting pebbles into the bottom of your pots may be the reason why your potting mix stays too wet.

And now to explain why - the hard part. You might need some sustenance before you continue.

When soil or potting mix (or cutting mix etc) is watered, the water drains away until what we call 'field capacity' has been reached. Field capacity is the amount that a soil holds after having been saturated and given a little while to drain.

We were taught about this with the aid of a sponge, because it's very easy to see what the heck the explainer is on about.

* So, if you have some sponges handly, select two. One should be 'taller' than the other. They should be of the same type of material.

* Soak them, then place them on the draining part of the sink (that these days is never made of stainless steel or anything sensible, just so that everyone can shriek about having not yet caught up with the Jones's - oh the shame of it - and rush out and by the right kind).

* Wait for a few moments until the sponges have released the amount of water that they wish to release. No poking or prodding allowed. No accidently-on- purpose putting a brick on the short one.

Unless your sponges are very odd, you will see that the tall sponge and the short sponge have the same amount of water (height wise) sitting in them.

Obviously, the taller sponge will have more area that is now not water-logged.

By putting pebbles or anything at all in the bottom of your pots, you are removing some of the room that the potting mix would have taken. So what you have done, is made your 'sponge' (potting mix) much shorter.

The plants won't like it.

Some plants do want shorter containers, like annuals when sold in seedling trays. They need tons of water and will dry out quickly, so it is to their advantage to be in a shallow tray.

I presume (possibly wrongly) that it would still be okay to use short pots (or 'short soil' but you would have to alter the watering. Don't know to what, without having tried it.

Hope this makes sense.

My theory is that adding some loose material - in my case - xcoarse perlite to the bottom of the pot - improves aeration of the roots. When I repot - I try not to push on the soil - fill all the empty space with soil - but not compress it. Not watering from the top also helps. Using the sponge model - sponge with very small pores will hold more water than the sponge with holes like a Swiss cheese - that can be filled by breathable air.

IMHO this is a necessary approach when any kind of wicking is used - self watering pots or wicks or wicks and mats. Roots need to breath - and compressed wet soil packed down to the holes in the pot impares the access of air.

When I repot - the perlite layer is filled with white AV roots, but it is easy to scrape the large chunks of perlite off the bottom of the rootball without too much damage to these hard working roots. With constant supply of fertilized water by wicking it is possible to grow AVs in pure perlite - in a semi-hydroponics way - some people do it using hydroton - small ceramic balls.

I am just making the point - that you do not need to fill the pot to the very bottom with soil. Using some more root friendly material than broken pottery or gravel helps.

The wild species - Saintpaulia ionanatha - grows under the canopy of the montane forest on the rock outcrops in crevasses filled with a leaf litter and grit. It cannot compete with the tall grasses - so the niche for this plant - is to utilize small pockets of loose soil in the cracks. The root system is not that deep. So we know that providing an AV with too big of a pot with more soil than it needs is not good. Using dense soil where roots cannot breathe is also not good - in nature leaf litter and crumbling rocks are very breathable - provided that it rains often enough to keep the roots wetted - but not sitting in the water.

This approach to grow AVs - is more or less a modification of so called Texas nethod. It is well described in a wonderful book by Pauline Bartholomew "Growing to Show"

http://avsa.org/node/102

You can get it on Amazon too - try to get the latest edition - it is more up to date.

This book is marvelous, practical and short. Should be owned by every AV grower - even if you never grow to show. Just skip the showing part. But it gives a good feel on how AVs work. They will start talking to you.

i.

And the book has a recipe for the soil. A good one.

I never used AV soils. I use a 50/50 mix of peat moss and Perlite. AV mix is usually too thick and has not enough drainage.

Tommyr -

Yup = the store bought AV soil is asking for more perlite... Making your own soil mix can be much cheaper and better - as long as you adjust the pH. Perlite is neutral and peat is acid (pH=3.5-4.5) - each batch of peat can be different. The store bought mix is already adjusted. According to the book - you make your mix, add 2 tablespoons of dolomite lime per gallon of mix, moisten the soil - and wait for 2 weeks. Do the testing - the cheapest will be with litmus paper strips - Ph should be 6.6-6.8, if is still lower - you can add some more, wait 2 weeks and retest. Enjoy! ;-)).

If you buy the whole bale of peat - the Ph will be consistent - so you do the testing and adjustment once - and till the end of this bale you know the correct proportion.

On the subject of Ph, I've often wondered why we grow Saintpaulia in an acidic mixture when in the wild they often grow among limestone rocks. This would suggest using a sweeter medium. An old AV book I have states that violets don't like acidic soil and a Ph around 7 is best. I suppose this has been disproved over the years but I must have missed reading about all those determining test results.

Because - if Saintpaulias wouldn't be able to adjust to the range of conditions - they would die out. If I do not repot my AV for a year and half - the soil smells like vinegar, the plant looks not happy - but it is still growing and blooming. Means they will grow if your pH is 7 and slightly above - but less successfully.

I.

Interesting. Thanks for the info. Rosie

I found an article by Bob Green from FL regarding pH. I think it covers a lot of questions on what is the best pH of the soil and why.

http://www.avsa.org/sites/default/files/files/pH,%20RX.pdf

In short - they just grow and bloom better this way,

Yesterday I obtained a leaf from my mother. She has an AV holed up in a plastic container, in her room in a retirement village, where she now lives.

I am experimenting with my leaf. This morning I scraped up some leaf mould/horse manure from my heap and popped it into a pot about 1.5 inches wide and 4 inches deep. In went the leaf up to his bottom and I've watered him in (overhead!!) but will probably not water him for ages. He is outside, resting, under the top half of a plastic milk bottle in the shade. (No sun has been on him at all.)

Could well be a disaster in the making but it all looked comfortable to me. It's going to get to 35 degrees C. today. Yikes.

Wow,,,,that is some experiment! Just to tell you, violets hold a lot of water in the stem. They can't take that kind of temp even in a container. Just sayin. However let us know what happens, but I think it will have cold damage.

Rosie

Tete was quoting the temperature in celsius, not fahrenheit. Fahrenheit 35 would give cold damage but 35 C. is about 95 F. Which I would rather have than the 10 degrees F. outside right now!

Oh my! hahahaha,,,,,I am so sorry. I didn't even see the C.!!!! I am just so used to Farenheit! Soooooo,,,,I take it back. Do over.,,,,,,,the only thing I can say now is that I hope the horse manure/leaf mix is very well composted! Now I am really curious to know what happens!!!!!

Thanks for correcting me!!!! Rosie

LOL! and only now, finally, do I remember my experiment. Off to see what my AV is doing...

I'm back! Yes, everything is going ok. He looks the same as he did yesterday.

The horse manure has been with the leaves for quite some months. The only problem might be that the mix might hold too much moisture because of the size of a lot of the particles. We'll see. I've given up trying to do things perfectly because that way, I won't end up doing it at all. One thing is certain, he can't complain of starvation.

Oh this is tooooo funny! I am well familiar with the dynamics of horse manure. Had a horse for over 20 years. I used his manure all the time. Everyone wanted his manure. We called it gold. It was that precious! Horse died. No more gold!

But I never used it on violets! You're a braver person than I! lol Rosie

Yesterday I discovered that my AV leaf is a parent! I had given up on it, and African Violets in general.

I was inspecting something else: AV leaf's neighbour - a piece of Salvia in a small pot of perlite. It was firmly rooted.

And I saw a tiny little pair of leaves at the foot of AF. What a brave little thing.

Perhaps though, I will pot it up in something other than what is present in the pot.

tete:

that makes you a grandparent. Had I done that to my grandson, he would have complained ...

grats!