Hay Northern Gardener, Not sure if you will really dislike me for this, or maybe appreciate me for it, but here goes.... My little AV space saving device has been around this forum for a while now, but you sound like you might be able to use it. I'm growing 8 newly rooted plants, or fully grown miniature AV's on an 8 inch square piece of shelf space that has approximately 15 inches of head room. See attached photos (I hope).

The base is an 8" square of used flooring tile, the "tower" is a section of bamboo, or a section of hardwood sapling cut from the woods behind the house. The hangers are light weight clothes hangers, which are bent to fit the neck of half pint canning jars. With the canning rings screwed on the jars, a Dart 3.5 oz. plastic cup No 3.5N25 will fit perfectly into the top of the jar leaving about half the height of the jar for water. I punch about 4 holes around the edge of the cups bottom, and loop an absorbent string through two of them making sure the loop is buried up into the potting soil. The holes for the hangers are drilled in pairs so the jars are on opposite sides of the tower, and the ends sticking through the tower can be wrapped around each other to prevent the jars from rotating.

These jars are too small for full grown standard AV plants, but miniatures can and will grow nicely in them.

I throw this out for what its worth.

Bill

Hi Bill, I haven't seen this before. Been missing in action for a few months, when it seemed like things were pretty quiet anyway. Nifty! I'm a little surprised the coat hangers have enough strength to hold the bottles up, with their water burden.

You know, it's getting harder to find wire clothes hangers anymore. Unless maybe one gets a lot dry cleaning? I admit to getting rid of quite a few, years ago, because they were always getting tangled up in the closet. I went to wooden ones. There are only a few wire ones left around here.

Did you find it easy enough to shape those perfect rounds, perhaps by bending them directly around the canning jars? I would be surprised if mine didn't come out rather kinky. ;p

Thanks, Bill, I'm hopeful that my inquiry and your response will help other users who visit this forum.

For now my own plan is to keep things as simple as possible. I have 2 oz Solo cups for individualsupp young'us, tightly grouped and tented in a take-out dish. Regular monitoring is required for these until they can be transferred to a wickable setup. Most of my individual baby violets in 2-oz Solos - about 7-10 at present - are backups of parent plants, with only a couple of exceptions. Then there are the leaf props, in various stages of development.

There are only three unique starts. My plan is to pick the strongest of each of the three examples for survival, and discard the rest. OH the heartlessness required is painful! I might have to give in and let the best two of those props which have come from ordered-in leaves and not from in-house mother plants have a performance contest.

I don't have any trailers, minis, or semi-minis yet, although I do have a semi-mini in prop state (baby leaves coming up, yay!). So while I don't have immediate need for your wonderful design, it does make me think ahead to future possibilitiies.

Thanks so much for adding to the community's resources. I am so grateful.

I agree about having to be ruthless. I bought some leaves in the late summer expecting one or two leaves of each variety and ended up with at least four of each.

I've been choosing the best pups then after they settle the rest are tossed/will be tossed. There are also a few AVs that are either not growing or keep having problems. It seems to be the same few varieties that keep fussing.

Some varieties that I like I might keep two of, we'll see.

It's important to keep the plants that grow well and bring joy otherwise the hobby can feel like more of a burden.

Ha ha ha hah. Is this an April 1 joke?

"I've been choosing the best pups then after they settle the rest are tossed/will be tossed. There are also a few AVs that are either not growing or keep having problems. It seems to be the same few varieties that keep fussing.

Some varieties that I like I might keep two of, we'll see.

It's important to keep the plants that grow well and bring joy otherwise the hobby can feel like more of a burden."

A good approach ...