Thank you Aqua for the snapdragons,delp,and onions I look forward to getting them. Iam not a big fan of Orange in our garden with a hot pink and dark purple shed, lol. thanks Pretty picture of your Iris I would love to get some tiny Iris in a diffrent colors. thanks again. I was having trouble posting on Gw for my post but it let me this time I hope it cleared things up now.Bon.

What's wrong with what you are doing? I've grown a lot of roses under lights in the house during the winter, and it sounds like it is doing fine. Since fluorescents aren't hot, except for the ballast, I used to let them grow around the bulbs a bit for more light. They were somewhat strange looking in the spring, but at that point I could either cut off the odd growth or ignore it.

Lucky, the 1/3 is given as a rule of thumb, it refers to the width, however, I think it refers to the depth as well as the height. The smallest and most shallow I have used is a small condiment cup. They work very well for very small plant lets that have come from leaves or suckers. Now, there are plastic saucers you can get in a plant store at times that are quite tall. They are very thin plastic. You can also use those Keurig style coffee cups if you know of anyone who uses those machines, ask them to save the cups for you. I am sticking to my belief that a clay saucer is going to be too shallow and not the right material. Unless you are going to watch very closely and as soon as the plant begins to grow, move it to a solo cup. But then that means a lot of unnecessary moving of the plant. Of course, others suggest you try it out and find out for yourself if it works or not. I have used cardboard seed trays I got at the hardware/plant store. They did not work. The leaves and small plants dried out too quickly. The plastic seed trays,on the other hand, work great. I have looked at egg cartons and thought the styrofoam ones might work well. The roots are like hairs on your head. There are just a few of them per the proportion of leaves, and they are quite delicate. It is because of this root system that AVs are thought to be hard to raise. Optimara have different roots,stronger and thicker and longer, but even those plants can't take too much repotting. More of my plants die from repotting than from anything else. At first, I tired using all sorts of materials that were not meant for raising violets, such as tea cups, or plastic containers that were too wide. Reading this forum and getting advice from others, once I started doing what was best for the plants, using the right size and height of pot, the plants did well. Because it takes nearly a year to go from a plucked leaf to a blooming plant, with all the hovering and concern, why not just start out with what the plant will thrive in from the get-go! The plants need monitoring. The red one that I am so proud of has another that I moved out of the dome and into a window a few months ago. It is very unhappy. The leaves got dull and the crown got miniscule. Now, I have to research throughout this forum to find out what caused that. Perhaps the low light. I hope, nothing more sinister. When a plant is thriving, it is hard to realize how sensitive it really can be if its environment is changed, even a little. Diana, Very nice photo essay! Thank you for taking the time to do that. This is a post to clip for future reference. I just moved two plants from 2 1/2" to 3". Their leaf span was wide but their roots were small. I don't have anything between 3 and 4 at this time. I moved them because it has been a year and they are not blooming. Sticking to the proportion of 1/3, a 4 inch would be too large. By the way, the Jean Pierre Croteau you advised I move to a 4" pot, I did. It is doing fine. It is now blooming. This brings up a question, I might have to do research. I understand that plants bloom from the crown, under the crown leaves only. So if I were to pinch off the blooms, would the plant never again bloom from that leaf, but only from the new crown leaves that are growing out? I decided to leave the blooms on. I might not show it, after all. And just bring plants to sell for the club instead. It is hard to juggle both, and the show has a theme that many are struggling to come up with ideas. I am thinking just to have a great display and sales area instead with colorful signs of AV. I will post my signs when they are finished for Karin's artistic input, if you are also reading this,Karin. Best to all, Happy and PeacefulSunday, Joanne

well i am using the AeroGrow CFL lights in the Aerogrow gardens, to grow my violets, as many as i can,i can only fit so many under each one. i bought 6 of them for the 3 gardens, everything grows FAST, and blooms like they are on steroids! The regular CFL twisted lights, i was using, they seemed to grow violets a bit, but now that I have been using these, till they burn out, ill use them.