Hi, Chris, Thank you for clarifying some things for me. I now have a better idea what is going on with your plants. First of all, if you are going to use the self-watering planters, you need to use a really light mix. The mixes made commercially are almost all peat moss, and they will stay too waterlogged to be successful in these planters. You can use this mix, but add equal parts of perlite and vermiculite to it, with a little extra perlite thrown in. This lighter mix allows air spaces for the roots. You can also add the fertilizer right to the solution in the pot. These pots do not work by evaporation, they simply allow the water on one side to seep through the clay to the other side. Agian, difficult to control... The rule of thumb for the correct pot size is to measure the diamet of the plant, and divide by three. The answer is what the diameter of the pot should be. A nine-inch plant goes in a 3 inch pot. The reason for this is that violets are a shallow rooted plant, and they like to be pot bound. If they are overpotted, there isn't enough root system to absorb all the water in the potting medium, and the chances of getting root rot are very high. As far as 'evaporation', imagine two bowls of water sitting on your counter. If you placed a potted plant over one bowl without it touching any part of the water, it is not going to get any of that water into the pot through evaporation. If you place the pot IN the water of the second bowl, it will ABSORB the water to the extent of the capacity of the medium. There is a lot of information here on the forum, and if you get some spare time I would encourage you to go through the posts and absorb as much as you can. Good luck. Barbara

Wiz - the recommended ix is 1:1:1 peat -- perlite - vermiculite, plus a pinch of dolomite lime to up the Ph to 6,5, microelements and a bit of horticultural charcoal. That's why I buy my soil in the Violet Showcase by big bags - they do it for me. This mix is a variation of a Cornell soilless mix - you can google it in details. But I usually play with it some more - add more perlite for streptocarpus - and add some milled sphagnum moss for Sinningias and Kohlerias. Plus I put a layer of coarse perlite on a bottom - to increase the air flow to the roots.If you do not uuse mats - probably uyou are OK without extra perlite. Thing is - you start with something- and then experiment or try somebody's else idea - but only on 1-2 plants to see if it works or not. I do not know anything about a coarse AF soil - because usually the inexpensive brands of potting soil have composted bark or woodchips in it - and it is not good - wet wood decomposes making soil mix very acid and it absorbs nitrogen from the soil. Even when you buy Scotts or Miracle Grow AV soil - it is never consistent - but usually it is mostly peat. I would avoid a cheap allpurpose potting soil. I.

The self watering ceramic pots cause the soil to retain too much water, drowning the roots and causing them to rot. Also you cannot "leach" the soil in ceramic planters. I have some plants growing in them for years, big happy healthy plants. It seems to work better if I don't fill the bottom pot with too much water. I have also had to remove a plant or two from this type planter that I tried to grow in them and they were not happy. I also got a different type of two piece ceramic planter at a thrift store for 60 cents, the top planter is very deep (way too deep for an av) and has a lot of exposed area that is not glazed....I thought an episcia would grow nice in that, but the soil held tons of water cause too much unglazed area was soaking up water...it would be great for a bog plant though!, ha. Use what works for you..but a happy violet is going to look really nice and bloom a lot.

Hi, JA: The disadvantage to the Oyama Planters is they don't hold as much water other reservoirs. The other disadvantage is you have to pick pot up to fill the reservoir. Volkman reservoirs have a hole in the lid where you can pour water plus a place for the wick to go. The second "disadvantage" is actually an advantage for me since it makes me inspect my plants more closely than before. However, when I first started wick watering I painted and decaled (if there is such a word) the outside of plastic containers. Cut one hole in the top for the wick and one to fit the nozzle of my watering can. Those worked just as well as the more expensive ones. I went from Volkman reservoirs to the Oyamas because, as you said, they have a smaller footprint. I believe any method can work. It's kinda like what I'd tell my dog training clients when they'd assume I'd be against dogs on the furniture and in the bed. If it worked for them, why change? Especially since mine do the same. :-D Linda