Thats a really nice plant,looks very healthy!
Im sure my partner wouldnt object to another plant if it looked that good ;)

Ispaha, nice growing! That is one fine looking plant. And you say that at the time the picture was taken, the blooms were past its peak?? Who would've known!
-CG

Hi,

Very nice!!! I may have to put it on my wish list.

Larry

Fantastic, Ispahan! You say you grow all your streps in clay pots? I may have to start this, due to the local unavailability of plastic pan pots. I have a Falling Stars with a *bunch* of leaves currently in a 2 1/4" pot. No flowers yet. I usually follow the rule that they have to be budding at least before I move them up a size, but there are so many leaves. Can you give me any insight?

Thanks, Mo (WV)

Mo, what follows may be *very* bad advice, so please don't follow it unless you are willing to risk your plants. The truth is that I disregard all known, tried-and-true rules when it comes to potting Streptocarpus and Saintpaulia. Case in point is this plant of Streptocarpus 'Falling Stars'. I received it in November of 2004 as a starter plant in a 2 1/4" plastic pot and I repotted it immediately into a standard 6" terra cotta clay pot in standard Pro-Mix potting soil with a lot of added perlite. After settling in for a couple of weeks, it started into RAPID growth and leaf production. When I repotted it into its current 8" azalea pot a month or so ago, I was pleased to see an incredibly dense and amazingly healthy root system. Not even a single speck of soil could be seen anywhere. Just pure white roots. My other streps that I have planted in clay--many of which I have had a lot longer than this 'Falling Stars'--also do exceptionally well, much better than any I have had in plastic.

The point? BIG pots with careful attention not to overwater while the roots are settling in = HUGE plants. I'm sure not everyone would have the space for a monster plant this size, and my plant only shows signs of getting larger... I may have to pot it up to a 10" or 12" pot in another couple of months.

This plant is much larger than its looks in this photo. A few weeks ago it was absolutely spectacular, so dense with flowers that there was scarcely a gap. Too bad that this particular photo looks blurry and out of focus... I am still getting the hang of my new camera. :-)

Thanks for the disclaimer! LOL. I can't let my plants get that big... I did overpot Bristol's Party Girl and was very careful about watering it. Now, several months later, it's growing fast and Yes! - a bud.

BTW, what window do you have that in? I use east, west, and south, with vertical blinds half open in the west and south. So far, so good!

-Mo (WV)

In the past I never used terra cotta that much. Nowadays I use them more and more, both for decorative purposes outdoors and for good growth on things like succulents. I remember waaay back, seeing some wonderful streps grown in terra cotta though. Here in California, with our low summertime humidity, one must water more often in clay, but a little overpotting is OK, as a way of mitigating that. So, you have influenced me--the other day I put a struggling strep with a lousy root system in clay and I'm going to put my other streps in clay too. I'll just have to be better about watering on time. But, they wilt in plastic too--if you forget to water them.

When my mom lived in Chicago (Evanston) in the 70's she grew streps in plastic bulb pans, with a layer of long fiber sphagnum circling around the root ball and next to the sides of the pots. She found that helped her plants to grow well. But, terra cotta sounds like a better idea and basically does the same thing.

Your plant is definitely a show plant, if you were to show it. I know the local gesneriad society would love to have specimens like that in their show, which was last month.

But, you need to remember, that streps do best when they are fresh starter plants that are growing on. They can do wonderfully as they grow biger. But, old plants are another matter. They may need more care to keep them going. I have heard, though, of streps that lasted for twenty years as potted plants (in terra cotta, come to think of it). So, there is no reason to think of them as short lived. But, still, its a very good idea to always be propagating them to get new fresh starts. And, they are such good plants to share with others.

Jon

Hi Jon:

I find that one of the nicest things about streps is that they do not seem to mind a slight wilt and will recover nicely upon being watered again.

I first experimented with unglazed clay terra cotta pots when some of my first streps--all growing in small, plastic pots--were victim to basal and root rot. After I researched the genus in a bit more detail, it dawned on me that clay pots might be the most suitable. I know that Rex Dibley, in both of his books, claims that clay should not be used for streps since the roots tend to stick to the porous clay and are therefore harder to repot. This did not seem like a valid reason to me as to why clay should/could not be used. So I experimented with a few plants at first, and was ultimately very pleased with the results. I think I can now safely say that *in my particular growing conditions*, clay pots are best for streps.

And as for the roots sticking, when I repot my streps I just carefully run a knife blade around the inside perimeter of the pot, as deep as I can go, and the plant usually pulls out easily with the entire root ball intact. I have not noticed any particular shock or trauma from doing it this way, but I think that a happy, healthy plant would bounce back from mild stress like that without hardly skipping a beat anyway.

I am also experimenting with growing some of the larger Saintpaulia species (like S. grandifolia and S. pendula var. kizarae) in terra cotta clay pots. These require a much more constant supply of moisture (I'm sure I will be sick of watering them before the summer is over), but they have responded with lots of growth and loads of blooms. This makes sense to me since they are found growing in the wild as lithophytes and semi-epiphytes, and thus would appreciate the extra aeration that the porous clay provides.

Mo:

I explained about what window exposures I used (and use now) for this plant in the very first post :-)

I think I stopped reading after 'azalea pot'. :)

-Mo (WV)

That is really a fine specimen. I heard Falling Stars is supposed to be really floriferous. Do you have any others that bloom like this? Also, your leaves look perfect. Nice growing!

Nikki, I think 'Gloria', also a Dibley hybrid is a heavy bloomer like this one. The species, johannis in its orginal white flower form is another that will make a cloud of flowers. It is a very nice plant to have, is in the background of all the compact hybrids, and still has lots of potential as a breeding parent. In the seedfund there are also some other, more recently introduced forms of johannis, that have blue flowers. I grow one that stays really small with small but very pretty blue flowers (I think it was listed as "aff. johanis"). BTW, "aff", in case you don't know, stands for "affinity" and indicates a plant, usually newly collected and introduced, that may or may not be the same species but looks like it is closely related. Often a plant with aff. will later be given its own species.

An old old variety that was once very popular but now may be extinct, 'Super Nymph' was capable of producing a huge cloud of flowers from dozens of inflorescences arrising from the vigorous growing plant. The mass of flower stems and clowd of flowers looked like an atom bomb bursting from the plant. The color was purple/blue. It may still be around somewhere but I haven't seen it listed anywhere in many years. At one time though, it was used in back cover magazine ads in popular horticultural magazines for a big mail order nursery on the order of Stokes or Burpee.

Jon

Was 'Super Nymph' big in the '70's? It seems to ring a bell, and I had a couple Streps back then. They used to be available in grocery stores and mom & pop shops that sold other things (I typed "mom & pot" the first time. I couldn't have been thinking head shops...my fingers must just be trained to plant-related words.) but Streps have disappeared locally, never to return.
I read about clay pots for Streps on the discussions side, and was mulling it over, but I'm especially glad I finally looked here in the gallery and got more information.
I have several small Streps that I feel are doing ok, but not spectacularly. I'd really prefer spectacular!
I just lost 'Bristol's Daisy Jane' to basal rot--- my own darned fault, as I let it get too dry and then I soaked it down. I can get away with that just fine with my own quick-draining mix, but 'BDJ' was still in the vermiculite stuff in which I bought it. Darn, I hate when I do stupid things!
I've got half a doz. plants or so that need potting up (I was waiting for spring so I could take the mess outside) and CLAY it will be! I'm a firm believer in eschewing the rules in favor of what actually works, and this sounds like it would suit my conditions.
I do appreciate the information.
Beautiful plant, BTW!

Jen,

Where did you get your BDJ? I'm curious to know if it was in Rob's mix.

Also, I take comfort in the fact that people who are much better 'plantsmen' than me still kill things regularly!

-Mo (WV)

I think most people, whether they have "green thumbs" or not, have killed more plants than they care to admit. I have been gardening and studying plants my entire life and there are still times when I am confounded by something with a reputation for being ridiculously easy which nevertheless turns brown and dies seemingly within hours of being under my care.

I typed a follow-up to this a couple days ago, and my session "timed out" before I submitted...all of about 2 minutes. Same thing just happend on the C&S forum. I'll be glad when the bugs get worked out of GW!

Yes, Mo, you called it! It was from Rob's. They have nice plants, good shipping- I've got no gripes, but their mix isn't suited to my conditions and growing style. Anything I get from them I should re-pot right away...but you know how it is. The plants didn't need more room, and since it was winter, I procrastinated. (Personally, I haven't had any trouble potting in winter, as long as I'm careful not to massacre roots or over-soak; I just prefer to pot outside where spills don't have to be cleaned up)

Oh gosh, I think the only people never kill plants are those who never try anything new! I keep a majority of mine alive & healthy most of the time, but like Ispahan, I'm absolutely confounded my some, and it isn't always the "difficult" ones!