Thank you for your kind words. This one has been on my wanted list for a while so you can imagine how happy I was to get leaves and babies. I'm very happy that I did! And I hope to use it in my own hybridizing as I'd like a variegated form so I'm considering crossing it with perhaps EK Scarabe. Though I like the single layered pansy better than a double so I'm still thinking about it. Meanwhile I'll bank pollen.

So beautiful!! Goes to my wishlist for sure.

What lovely colors!!!!! My eyeballs are going in circles!!!! lol Rosie

The more I look at this one the MORE I like it !

Its is very nice. I have an overachieving Anthoflores Ultra Saturn and have wondered if it will bloom itself to death. Bloom head is larger than the plant!

In all my years of growing AV'a (more than 40) I have never had one bloom itself to death, though I suppose that is possible. Streps certainly can go that way.

I heard that if you pollinate a flower on a young plant - the energy it takes from a plant to set seeds can kill it.

hmmm, I would disagree. I have had violets inadvertently set seed and I have let them go just to see what would happen and the plant never died. It just doesn't make sense to me that pollination/seed setting would kill the violet. Of course it takes some energy from the plant but I don't think it would be fatal by any stretch. Just my logic ! Rosie

While I agree if the plant is small and weak, forcing it to set seed (especially a streptocarpus) can stress it and cause it to die. From my personal experience that is less common in African Violets though I imagine it is possible if it was a tiny leaf baby that bloomed instead of a more maturing plant. In any event, I'm hardly worried. I put down backup leaves on everything and it's a rare plant in my collection that I only have one of...

Forgot to say this. My friend started out with a strep in a violet sized pot. She had that strep for years. I am talking 20 at least. As the plant grew and flourished she kept potting up (as opposed to dividing and keeping small) and just let it do its thing. It would grow, go dormant in winter (she kept it in her unused upstairs which was verrrrry cool but not freezing) and when it showed signs of life in the spring brought it back down to sit in a south west window with NO curtain. It eventually ended up in a glass pot you could see through (cool !) that was about 10 inches across. That pot was FULL of plant and roots. And it bloomed very nicely and set seed whenever the spirit moved it. Betty just let the seeds ripen and drop. No biggie to her. She didn't do anything any different.

As I type this, I am wondering if maybe we try to take TOO good of care of our plants?

Anyway the plant finally had its sad demise when there was no one to care for her plants for a while because she had a stroke and to this day is still in a nursing facility. Doing well, but she will never again be able to live alone. By the time her daughter realized mom wasn't coming home, it was too late for some of her plants.

I guess the point I am trying to make is this. If a plant is healthy seed pods shouldn't hurt it no matter what type of plant it is. Of course it goes without saying that out of desperation if a plant sets seed it may die in the process of trying to propagate itself. Just my story and opinion (as usual !!!) Rosie

Well, Rosie, it also helps to know what is in the breeding of your plant. If you have a close ancestor that is a species that flowers and then always dies right after setting seed (monofoliates) then clearly it /is/ a bad idea to let a young strep bloom, let alone produce seed, if it only has one primary leaf. It will die, because that is what it is programmed to do in nature. Not allowing it to flower, or at least removing the flower shortly after opening and trimming the leaf to force it to try to make more leaves, is the usual method to combat that. Once it has several leaves it is no longer an issue unless it flowers very heavily and is allowed to set a lot of seed at once. Then boom, it could die - again because of it's species parent.

On the other hand, there are quite a few streps that do not have a monofoliate species origin or only have it distantly. Those particular hybrids are at far less risk to have this problem. But I hadn't really seen it n AV's as a rule. Leaves going all white seems to be a greater risk of collapse and even then it isn't common.

I happen to pot my streps up every time they start to get root bound - which is what also triggers flowering. They grow fast and start forming multiple crowns that way. You certainly do not need to divide them /unless/ the crowns start to smother each other. Again it depends on the species in the background how the crowns will be produced and whether or not your particular variety will do better, and look nicer, and flower more heavily as a single crown or in groups. So it is wise to know your plants and keep an eye on how they grow for you. Clearly the kind she had did fine in clumps, and many of them do, but there are quite a few that just won't bloom that way. Flowers won't be able to force up through the leaves because they will be too tight. And in nature that is a sort that tends to die and be replaced with young, fresh plants. So dividing or starting over from seed is simply necessary once in a while to keep your stock vigorous.

Take Dale Marten's 'Dale's Scarlet Macaw' as an example. One of the parent plants is a monocarpic monofoliate species that /always/ flowers, sets seed and dies. Boom, goner. So Dale warns that this hybrid must have the first leaf trimmed back about 1/2 and it is best to remove first flowers or you risk the seedling dying. Once it kicks into making multiple leaves it's usually out of danger. But it's still a good idea not to let it produce a lot of seed pods at once.

Then you have plants like Bristol's Spectacular, another strep. It is /famous/ for blooming itself silly as a small plant and then dying, even if it doesn't set any seed at all. The plant starts into a flowering phase and stops leaf production, and it won't quit. So you know to let it flower, then pinch buds and not to let it /keep/ flowering. Then it'll kick energy back into making leaves.

If you happen to collect some pretty expensive plants like I do, it is wiser to do your homework and not let those $30 seedlings croak by not taking some precautions. ;) It's not that big a deal to be -patient- and let the plant mature a bit before you try making hybrid crosses and seed. And you'll tend to get more viable seed, more of it.

~ Hyn Patty

Thank you for that fascinating lesson, Hyn. I appreciate your information and tips. I had seen one demo on YouTube stressing that no strep does well with multiple plants in one pot and should ALWAYS be separated to bloom well - which didn't make sense to me. It seemed far more likely that as you say, you have to watch how the plants develop and no one method fits all. It's good to know that difference is based on genetics and in some way can be predicted, allowing better care...although as I am a casual grower and certainly no hybridizer, I'm not sure where to go to research a particular plant's ancestry?

I'm sure Dale Martens herself, who generally plants three baby streps per pot for shows, would disagree with that information right off. Haha. I presume that particular person merely enjoys the cleanliness of a single crown, but to each their own preference on what kind of display you desire. As for a go-to reference about streptocarpus and their research, I should message you since we have gotten rather off topic for this AV group.

Streps and most gesneraids trigger blooming when they begin to become root bound so actually having a few in the same pot, /OR/ restricting pot size is how you get flowering. We try to disbud and fertilized to try and help make that flowering the best it can be, if you are showing. That is true of AV's as well. I can force a very tiny African Violet into flower very early if I want to keep it wicked in a thimble sized pot and that's precisely how we can truly keep micro-minis tiny for say dropping into terrariums for shows.

I'll drop a photo here of what is quite literally just barely larger than a 1 inch wide plant mini (not even a micro) that is blooming in a 1 inch wide tiny pot. I could very easily have started it in a pot less than half that size and kept outer leaves removed. /Normally/ this Russian mini called "Before the Storm' grows about 4 inches wide but if I want to, I can maintain it easily at 1 inch if I had put it into a thimble pot (wicked).

Here is a photo of the mother plant at 4 inches and grown normally:

As far as I know we can't keep streps that tiny without causing problems, but even they are triggered to bloom very early and small if they aren't bumped up in pot sizes. It's good to check that it blooms true, but not leave it that way. In nature when they begin to become root bound in their little pockets of organic material on a mountainside, they bloom, set seed and tend to die or go dormant until the next season. So if we keep loosening the roots and potting up a bit at a time, divide them if they get too crowded, we can keep them more vigorous, reblooming, and longer lived - for decades. Some of my Streps are going on 3 years old now but some of my plants (AV's included) are decades old and are the original plants.

I do tend to ramble, don't I?

Good Ideas, Hyn!