Older leaves are probably... old and it is time for them to be removed. Your Trinidad worries me more. Can be a problem with roots. Put some leaves down just in case.

Ceramic pots are wicking the water out and drying fast. Can it be that your Trinidad is mostly dry all the time?

I.

that can happen? Oh boy. Chloramine possibly strikes again :/ I just sent an email to the supplier asking about it. The website doesn't list chloramine at all. Hopefully it's clean..

i wondered if it was older leaves, since the chimera stopped dropping so many once it settled. Yea the Trinidad worries me too. I thought of lack of water, since the only time my plants look like that are when they're cold, or when they're dry.. I started watering that one from the top with a pipette to make sure it got water, but maybe it's time I just got it a plastic pot.

any particular reason my plants are so leggy? A lot of them, though not all, have those big long stems.

Leaf stems - petioles - too long? Probably your grow light is not enough. you can lower it down a bit. I can see that the leaves are a bit stretching to the light - but not too bad.

Well I heard back from the local supplier aaaand... the spring I go to is privately owned. So they don't know for sure. but they said they'd worked with the gentleman who owns the spring and didn't recall him using chloramines, and were confident the water was clean. I'm not actually so sure that's the problem anyhow. Only two of the plants are losing bottom leaves to crinkling tips. Hopefully they're just old leaves.

I started watering the Trinidad more carefully, so hopefully that improves. If watering gently from the top helps its condition, I'm going to move it to a plastic pot asap. I'll keep an eye on it and let you guys know. Dunno if this is helpful but the Trinidad has never really held up its stems very well. When I first bought it the stems were falling all over the place and the only reason I still bought it was because the flowers were so cool :P is that just a trait of this particular variety?

When it comes to giving plants enough light, can distance from the plant be the same as length of exposure? The light is mounted on a shelf in my room and it would be hard to drop it down. The plants are only about 1.5-2 ft from the light and get 6ish hours a day. Honestly the chimera and the trinidad are the biggest culprits for long petioles at the moment. They just don't want to lay down.

Oh by the way, here's those weird transparent leaves I was talking about.

Any idea what's up with that?? Only this optimara has it.

I think I'm going to switch back to bottled spring water just to be safe. I love the spring down the road because it's cheaper and convenient, but I also don't want to risk my poor babies.

Sorry for multiposting on this but I may have found something with the trinidad. I moved it away from the other violets since it isn't getting better and I noticed a fine white dust on the flowers... Powdery mildew perhaps? It comes right off if I blow on it so I can't tell if it's dust or mildew (my room gets kinda dusty at times). Would powdery mildew cause the symptoms that the Trinidad has?

If Trinidad ll is in a clay pot to me that creates a problem with watering. If you water in a clay pot you must not only moisten the soil thoroughly, you must ALSO make sure the clay pot has absorbed all of the water it can. You aren't done watering until that clay has reached maximum absorption. Then as the clay pot dries it will wick water away from the soil of the plant.

I am also wondering if Trinidad ll is getting enough light. Some violets require more light than others.

Can't tell if you have powdery mildew or dust bunnies. If it is dust bunny coating on the leaves, that also cuts down on the amount of light the leaves are able to absorb so they can live.

I have Trinidad ll and MyDelight. They both have long stems no matter what I do or where I move them to. BUT they bloom well and look beautiful! They grow in an unobstructed East window. Hope this helps a little. Rosie

Definitely moving it to a plastic pot then. All my others are in plastic pots; I think I just put it in the clay one for the size, tbh. The Trinidad was the closest to the light out of all my violets. I have them kinda staggered on a display step, because some of them like less light and some like more.

What's interesting about the dust/mildew, is that its only on the flowers, and only on the Trinidad. I can blow on the plant and the dust comes right off, but then it comes right back on. None of my other flowering plants have the dust. Maybe because of its height? but then I can't figure out why its not on the leaves too.

Your info is helpful, thank you! I'm gonna move it to a different pot and see if I can't raise it up closer to the light a bit more, since the light can't come down.

Good luck Artsy! Sounds like a plan! Let us know how it works out for you. Rosie