African Violet Art

The MN Av Club is looking for more funds and I am looking for ways to finance.....my hobby, I mean help pay the rent, keep me alive besides my day job, lol.

An idea is born. AV art.  I want it to be original. One of my friends happened to have some polyamer clay stored in his house. (fimo, premo, kato, and scupty III)

That got me started on a project. I made some molds by casting some of my African violet leaves (very carefully!). It took a few tries, but eventually I got a few good castings with minimal breakage showing on the mold.

Then the clay:  I like to mix things. Probably a bad Idea, Idk.  I mixed together a bunch of transparent clays; kato, fimo, and cernit and mixed in watercolor paint to give pigment.  With that as a base color, I pressed the clay into the molds. Some will be painted using acrylic and watercolor blends (sealed of course) and some covered with embossing powder ( thanks to Layl McDill for the suggestion!)


These are what resulted:

Top left and clockwise: clay base unpainted, opaque embossing powder, (2 leaves) painted with watercolor and sealed, 3rd leaf: same process, made to look like the reverse side, left leaf: pearl embossing powder.

These are magnets. Some will be made into broaches. More to come for the fall show in October. if that goes well, there will be some more available to buy at the HarMar Mall show next year.

How many seeds are in an African violet pod?

I'm really curious.

I just divided up my E batch. There was a lot.

I had this.

Divided them up and spaced them out.

There still wasn't room to fit them all.

I lost count at 225. There still looked like a good 20 more at least. Add to that, I found many day 1 sprouts. What a tangled mess to sort through.

I mangled their roots trying to get them separated. The poor things. I'm not sure all 225 + will make it.  And I am not sure I want them all to either.  What will I do with them all?  Fortunately for this batch, there shouldn't be a whole lot of interesting to make it worth saving every. damn. one.

I'll have to cross the bridge when it comes. Future plans involve either giving away a lot or possibly exposing them to some kind of pathogen and see what (if any) survives.  Granted I ended up overwatering the tray, I may get to see this early.  Hopefully not.  I'm leaving the container open to let the excess water evaporate.

Seedling Update

The long awaited post showing my seedlings has finally come. Photos taken Yesterday.

Starting with Batch C: (ButterflyBombshell x self)

Wow. Oh My. Have they grown? 

Before I know it, they will need their own containers. At that point they will be assigned their #'s in the order I plant them. If one dies in the transplanting process, then the next one (if I have some late ones) get assigned that number. At least that's what I did with the past two batchs This is a small batch of about 12-14. The seedpod dried up prematurely. (like within 2.5-3 months after pollination.) Most are growing out their 2nd set of true leaves. I'm starting to see their personalities. I also get an idea if the reverse will be colored.  Colors all look medium green, with one being slightly lighter. My favorite is still the wide leaf with the clearly serrated edges. The"U" shape curve hints that it may turn out to be wavy to slightly wavy.

Side notes: I notice differences between how some are unfolding their new leaves. Some have a clear crease along the center of the leaf and some do not.

Batch D (Rhapsodie. Stephanie x Ness Fantasy Gold)

(I forgot to take a photo yesterday of this batch, so I'll try to get one soon.)

Catching up fast. They are starting on their 1st set of true leaves. Already I've spaced them apart.

I don't remember when the seedpod dried up. I forgot about the plant for a while. I suspect the pod made it to 4 months at least. No visible favorites yet. Lots of smooth edges so far. I expect a high number of wavy. NFG is wavy. R. Stephanie produced a high number of wavy in the past. In future tests, I'd like to see if she hides a wavy leaf gene. For now I'm waiting to see the true leaves grow out more.

Side notes: I notice one cotyledon often continues to grow along with the leaves. The other tends to remain smaller.

Batch E (B26 x Woodland Sprite)

Oh my! Oh Dear. Oh No. What am I going to do?

I. did. NOT. need. Every. Damn. Seed. to. Sprout. Okay, maybe not all, but there sure is a lot of green goin' on. Over 50 and not done sprouting yet!

They are too small for most hybridizers to consider spacing apart. I had to get started. There's no way they are going to make it growing that close together.  I'll have to do what I did with my B batch; make up 2 (or more) containers and space the sprouts into those.


Side notes:  The pod never dried out at all. Around the 4 month mark, the pod opened itself and started dumping the seed on the leaves below. The seeds in this pod appeared larger and harder than the seeds I saw in the pods that dried up first.

African Violet Germination

Photo Collage showing samples of the germination process.

Just thought it was kind of interesting. Note wispy root fibers. Samples taken from my E batch (B26 x Woodland Sprite), D batch (R. Stephanie x Ness Fantasy Gold) and C batch (Butterfly Bombshell B28 x Self).

A Hybridizer's Nightmare: Dehiscence (African violets)

I was going to blog about my new African Violet Seedlings. I now have a C and D batch of seeds sprouting. C (Butterfly Bombshell x Self) is already putting up it's 1st set of true leaves.)  D batch is going to be huge. (over 30 plants coming.)

But, as usual, something came up and took precedence for my attention.

This.

and this.

Those are seeds, fully formed, and fallen on the leaf below.

As if the plant couldn't wait. As if it felt mad that I picked two other AVs to plant pods. As if it felt it's seeds were important to plant NOW ...  And by Golly if the hybridizer wasn't going to make a move, then she was gonna to do it herself.


Okay, that wasn't my first thought when I saw the horror. Was it bugs?  Recalling all the fears I had about the mites, bugs, etc..  Mice?  No. Not a bite mark. It looked too cleanly opened along a natural seam. I've been watching this pod and others. Could they open at those lines? No, I kept telling myself. African violet pods do not open, or do they if grown under certain conditions? After all Steptocarpuses and Sinningias () do this all the time, I think? Well, there seems to be plenty of info to find on it anyway. But African violets? Not a thing.


Recalling my troubles this summer,  I was dealing with too much light, too much heat, and maybe too much fluctuations between wet and dry, and lots of humidity to go around. Enough to stink the basement. Pew.  Not to mention what all I did to try to treat such things. I sprayed with Forbid, tried to treat cown rot, root rot, eventually just kind of letting go and seeing if the plants will recover on their own. It seems the AV's growing away from the lights are faring better, so it leads me to believe the light is the main issue with my tight crowns and possible poorly thriving plants.

So this all leaves me with lots of questions.  Was the seed pod dehiscence related to what I did, or can all African violets display this behavior under the right conditions?  Stress? Is this what happens if the pods do not dry out before the seeds reach maturity? Could this be one way African violets disperse their seeds in the wild?  Has anyone been able to observe them in their natural habitat? And see them go to seed too?

Meanwhile I watch my other upcoming pods. I am thinking about putting a paper bag or something around them and just letting them do their thing. Let's see if they open up and how wide they go if they do. The seeds will hopefully stay contained and ready to plant at my convenience. Not theirs. :P

P.S. I did salvage and plant the seeds in question. Will see if they are as viable as I suspect they are.  Most of the seeds were well formed, clearly visible, and hard, like wood to the touch. I could roll them between my fingers.

----------------------------August 18-12 Update-----------------------------

The seeds I planted from B26 x Woodland Sprite are sprouting. Aready. About 3 of the sprouts are fully open and clearly visible. I'd guess they probably sprouted yesterday, but I missed seeing them.

That was quick!  At least as far as I know, based on my limited experience planting African Violet seeds. That would be like only 3 days after planting. (I have had other flower seeds sprout that quick, but that's another topic.) Most of the sprouts have just started. They have put out their first root and have their leaves folded with or without the seed shell still attached.  To be a safe guess I'd say 4.5 days for the earliest one can probably expect to see African violet sprouts from planting.  But considering this was from a seedpod that opened on its own (something not observed or documented as far as I know), anything "normal" is irrelevant here.

Photo updates of the sprouts below.

I feel like a Pariah

 Hardly anyone wants to do trades with me, no one wants leaves.  I feel like my name is smeared and I am like an outcast. I brought it on myself I know.  I'm still waiting on the soil test. I'm still having trouble finding mites to take to an entomologist.

I did cut down on watering, let the soil mix actually get dry and crumbly on the surface, which means too dry I thought.  But with the heavy mix it still is very moist just an inch under the surface.  Where it dried out, the roots are starting to grow back. Where the soil is moist, the roots are dead.

The Menards african violets in the bathroom are starting to grow new crowns.  The new growth is still pale.  I used an old PH testing strip.  The PH was high, like somewhere between 7 or 8. That is too high for ideal growth.  The city water seems to be alkaline too.  The soil was supposed to be acidic, but maybe the water brought up the PH.

 I'll try a little experiment:
1.Lighten the soil mix with more perlite
2. Microwaving some of my soil to pasteurize it and set a few starters in it.
3. plant a few starters w/o pasteurizing the soil
6. Get some soil acidifier from Menards or mix powdered sulfur in some.
4. wait it out, give them the same care. See what happens.


 If the ones with the acid soil amendments grow out the best, then it is a PH issue.  If the ones with the pasteurized soil grow out the best, then it is a soil pathogen case.  if they all grow out well, then it was a watering issue.  If they all grow out like crap, then there is something else going on. I'll need to check for pests or my lighting.

Recovery?

Maybe I'm just stressed out and ready to see faults in everything.  Maybe I've been killing my plants out of paranoia.

The mites seem to be very elusive. I brought over a plant to the local plant pathology lab. They could only find one mite, but were not able to identify it.  So I walked past a couple buildings to show the mites to an entomologist. Somehow he ended up with mite free leaves and thrip free blooms.  I'm glad for the no thrips, but puzzled how I missed giving him a mite to look at.  The darn things crawl really fast. They seem to like hanging around the soil and pot rims.  These little details and their long front legs makes me think these may be a an Oribatid mite or a predatory mite. Perhaps one of these? Or these? Or these? Or these? Or a Hypoaspis mite?
When I peered through the microscope in the plant pathology lab, I got a clear view of the mite, even clearer than my camera got.  It looked a lot like the last photo, an Amblyseius swirskii or some mite in that family or possibly in the Hypoaspis family.

That still won't stop me from trying to catch a few mites to bring back to the entomologist. If he verifies those are predatory mites or soil mites, then I'm not going to bother trying to get rid of them. It's doing me more harm trying to kill them, than to accept them as part of the microbiology.

This is my opinion on springtails.  Though they look ugly floating in the bottom of the water tray and just plain annoying, they serve a real function. Spreading good fungi and eating harmful stuff.  In fact it seems whenever I see my african violets growing in soggy wet soil without rotting, almost always, a colony can be found.  I learned that lesson once with a Christmas cactus. I sprayed and sprayed until most springtails were gone. The soil got moldy and the plant collapsed.  I learned to better leave the springtails be and just water less.

What about the strange growth? What is causing it?  The plant pathologist lifted one of my african violets out of its pot. He grumbled about the roots. "All dead" he said. "No roots, the plant's dead." He continued to complain how wet the soil was.  I too was shocked to see how soggy it got.  It felt dry on the surface.  It also got wet from spraying all my plants with forbid.  Out of curiosity I'm getting the soil tested to see if there is more to it or if the soil is just wet or has the wrong ph.

I'm still waiting on the soil test result.