not sure that this qualifies as a "craft." but it sure is a neat lil' experiment.
african violets are ubiquitous at my workplace. i have 2 plants at my desk and i know a handful of folks who have 'em, too. it helps that a lot of the cubes are by a window, so the violets grow really well. a VERY green-thumb'd coworker taught me this trick....
i used a clean razor blade to cut some stalks at a diagonal. say there's three rows of leaves, cutting from the middle row works the best, since the outermost row of leaves are old and no longer maturing and the innermost rows are too young and have too-short of a stalk.
stick the stem in a tube of clean water. that's it. african violet plant food can be used, but water alone works just as well. keep the stems in a bright spot, but not overly sunny. basically, whatever kinda sun works for the parental plant should work well with the baby cuttings. every few days, i added more water.
within a few weeks, i started seeing lil' roots.
this is about a 6-week old cutting. i've actually let it go on too long. these bushy things are now called "water roots" and it'd be harder for them to adapt to soil. they're not gonna automatically die in soil or anything, it'll just take a lil' longer for them to get settled. maybe an eighth to a quarter inch of roots would be ideal for transfering to dirt.
see the lil' itty-bitty leaves starting to come out? cool, eh?
i cut about 10 stalks at a time, so here's a bunch that's ready to go into soil.
here's a bunch in different stages of development.
the super young ones (bottom right) were from cuttings i did back in may or april. the rest are from earlier this year... february, i think.
definitely not an "instant gratification" kinda project. it'll take about a year for plants from cuttings to actually start flowering. but it's a cheap (i mean... FREE!) way to get a lot of african violets from one plant. and since i've started cuttings from 5 different plants (2 of mine and 3 from various coworkers), i should get a crapload of plants of different varieties!
i've also been told (although i've never tried it myself) that if different varities are planted in one container, they'll start sharing DNA through their roots. so if you planted a dark blue plant with a white one, both plants will eventually start flowering pale blue ones. i can't wait to try it out! when i finally get myself a house, all these mini-plants will prolly end up in one long flower box. DNA-exchange away!
african violets are ubiquitous at my workplace. i have 2 plants at my desk and i know a handful of folks who have 'em, too. it helps that a lot of the cubes are by a window, so the violets grow really well. a VERY green-thumb'd coworker taught me this trick....
i used a clean razor blade to cut some stalks at a diagonal. say there's three rows of leaves, cutting from the middle row works the best, since the outermost row of leaves are old and no longer maturing and the innermost rows are too young and have too-short of a stalk.
stick the stem in a tube of clean water. that's it. african violet plant food can be used, but water alone works just as well. keep the stems in a bright spot, but not overly sunny. basically, whatever kinda sun works for the parental plant should work well with the baby cuttings. every few days, i added more water.
within a few weeks, i started seeing lil' roots.
this is about a 6-week old cutting. i've actually let it go on too long. these bushy things are now called "water roots" and it'd be harder for them to adapt to soil. they're not gonna automatically die in soil or anything, it'll just take a lil' longer for them to get settled. maybe an eighth to a quarter inch of roots would be ideal for transfering to dirt.
see the lil' itty-bitty leaves starting to come out? cool, eh?
i cut about 10 stalks at a time, so here's a bunch that's ready to go into soil.
here's a bunch in different stages of development.
the super young ones (bottom right) were from cuttings i did back in may or april. the rest are from earlier this year... february, i think.
definitely not an "instant gratification" kinda project. it'll take about a year for plants from cuttings to actually start flowering. but it's a cheap (i mean... FREE!) way to get a lot of african violets from one plant. and since i've started cuttings from 5 different plants (2 of mine and 3 from various coworkers), i should get a crapload of plants of different varieties!
i've also been told (although i've never tried it myself) that if different varities are planted in one container, they'll start sharing DNA through their roots. so if you planted a dark blue plant with a white one, both plants will eventually start flowering pale blue ones. i can't wait to try it out! when i finally get myself a house, all these mini-plants will prolly end up in one long flower box. DNA-exchange away!
very cool post! that is definitely crafty, in all terms of the word :b Please take pics when they start flowering and post again so we can know about the DNA experiments
ReplyDeleteVery nice. Your green thumb and science combine! I agree with Carolyn, take some pictures when they bloom. I think it'll be interesting to see if you've got your genetically combined flowers.
ReplyDelete