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African Violets

Help! I broke one of my AVs... : (

19 years ago

Oh, I could cry... in the process of bringing home some of my AVs from work for repotting, a healthy 7" one fell over in the box I was carrying and the crown of it broke right off of the neck, just at the surface of the soil. Upon inspection, the neck looks white and healthy, so it wasn't root rot that caused it to snap, just gravity and my stupidity in not securing it better.

Is there any hope of keeping it alive by bagging it in new soil and begging it to grow new roots? (There are about five rows of beautiful green leaves.) Or will I just have start over with a single leaf?

Please help! :(

beck

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Comments (6)

scoutsadie
Original Author
19 years ago
...I spent a good amount of time reading old posts, and finally decided to treat the crown as though I were dealing with a long neck (per the FAQs). I removed most of the leaves, which in fact did leave a bit of a neck, then buried that and tented the whole thing.

I know the bag is supposed to encourage humidity, so I put a little bit of water in the bottom of the bag and moistened the soil/perlite/sphagnum mixture a little... is that enough? The pot is a self-watering pot, though I didn't put any water in the well.

I would appreciate any other suggestions or thoughts from you experts out there. Thanks!

beck
larry_b
19 years ago
Hi Beck,

It sounds like you did your homework. You did what I would have done. Good Job!

Larry
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Peter60
19 years ago
I would have advised using single leaves and increasing your stock - but good luck.

This article from my web site may be of interest

Here is a link that might be useful: Saintpaulias
korina
19 years ago
Beck, did you scrape the neck before you buried it? That will really help it root. Otherwise you did it right. I'm sure it will be fine in no time.

Good luck.

Korina
vickster257
19 years ago
Sorry to hear about your mishap, and hope that, with all of the above suggestions, that it will pull through for you.

In my case, no accident, but this was an old A.V. plant so I cut it back to the crown with about 5 or 6 leaves because it had an elongated neck,scraped the neck and dipped it very lightly in rootone, burying it up to the last row of leaves and placing it in pro-mix which had been pre-dampened, in a small pot. It is doing just fine. There must have been at least 10 leaves remaining but started new plants from just 2 of them. Good luck!

Vicki
scoutsadie
Original Author
19 years ago
Thanks, everyone! You guys are great.

Korina, I didn't exactly scrape the neck, but I figured by pulling most of the leaves off, I exposed enough of the soft tissue to make way for roots. Hopefully, that will suffice.

Peter, I thought about trying to root the leaves, but I just don't have the room or resources to cultivate more than my five AVs right now (I have tons of other plants in my office already). I discarded the leaves... I felt guilty, but did it.

b

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