Why Do Some Violets Have Hard/Tight Crowns?
PoohBearLvr
6 years ago
last modified: 6 years ago
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PoohBearLvr
6 years agoRelated Discussions
Would you consider this a 'tight' crown?
Comments (9)Tmac, the best way I've found to test for tight crowns, is to actually touch it. If the leaves feel hard and brittle, it's a 'tight' crown. As the others have said, move it to the end of the light fixture. It should start to loosen up in 2-3 weeks. If it's been over a month and it's still tight, try flushing the pot and not feeding it for a month or so. Someone said tight crowns are often caused by too much fertilizer; some experimentation of my own is proving that correct. Good luck. Korina...See Moretight crowns or lights too close?
Comments (11)I second Nancy - 8 inches is about right - but the recuperation time is I would say 6 months. AVs do not grow under T5, unless you put them 24" above I guess. The plants are damaged and it will take time for them to grow new healthy leaves. But even the itty bitty leaves are working now - so do not remove them. Your plants will kick back and bloom earlier than in 6 months - but they will look a bit strange. When the plants will grow several rows of good size leaves, you will remove the odd ones. I would say that 10-12 hours are OK, doesn't make that much difference. So far - just observe - you keep an eye on pests - just as Nancy said - and you keep an eye on plant growth - you stressed your plants - and they usually react with growing suckers - just as Nancy said - the crowns off center. But the plants are amazingly resilient, they will take time to row out of damage. Do not get rid of your T5s - one day you will be interested in growing other gesneriads - and there are some that require exactly T5s. Or you can grow your tomato seedlings next year, or Orchids. Good Luck irina...See MoreCrown too tight?
Comments (7)Having lived through over-fertilizing my Av's (and it taking 2 years to come back from that disaster) I don't think I will forget that more is not better. What happened to me was accidental - I ran out of the fertilizer brand I had used successfully for years and bought a different brand that was highly recommended. It however did not come in a lovely little bottle with the squeeze bulb dropper, so I refilled my old bottle. And the dosage of the new fert was not the same as the old one. Somewhere down the line I had a senior moment (all right, longer than a moment - more like senior months) and I reverted to the old dosage with the new fertilizer. First symptom was the tight centers, the brittle leaves. I couldn't figure it out. Blooms started looking odd. Then I began seeing the orange crystals on a few of the plants' leaves - (but not all had that symptom and I missed it for a long while.) Then it finally dawned on me! Yikes!! Let me tell you, to bring an AV back from that level of over-fertilization takes a long, long time. There were even some that after a year of babying would not grow right and I had to pitch them. Some I saved the best leaves and restarted - and they turned out OK, luckily, but it was a long time starting over. Anyway, sorry to ramble on, but I wanted to make my point that too much fertilizer can be really bad for your plants. "Fertilize weakly, weekly" is sometimes quoted - and I've taken it to heart. I now use less than half the recommended dose in my watering, and at least once a month I water with plain water and now my violets are thriving and blooming. YMMV - but Sue when I read that you sometimes use a bit more than the bottle recommends, I was worried for you! Please do measure carefully as I'd hate for you to ever experience something like I went through! Every expert I've heard and read recommends using only a portion of the manufacturer's recommended dosage. All these successful growers can't be blowing smoke. And Karin, you're going to make me go dig out my old Master Gardener manual and look up the numbers in fertilizer. My recollection is foggy, but I do not think that it is correct that 7-7-7 is less than half the strength of 15-15-15. I'll check on that and get back to you....See MoreTight crowns. How tight is too tight?
Comments (6)I worry about this too with new ones, but in my experience, it's always light and fertilizer. After one week with new soil, plain water, and some light, they open right up and start shooting up new healthy leaves. But this is for plants that look like Aegis' link on their second post, not like their photos on their first post. I know that I have caused some new leaves to look like the first post by over-fertilizing (small, curled, light green). I feel bad every time, but it's also a way to know "hey, the plant doesn't like this". My Michele actually did this last month... oops. It's also good to study multiple parts of the plant, not just one. I forget this! Most of my posts on here are from forgetting it. But just staring at the center or one leaf and not thinking about the plant's overall health will often have you worried about nothing....See MorePoohBearLvr
6 years agoPoohBearLvr
6 years agoirina_co
6 years agoirina_co
6 years agoJeff Zenner
6 years agoRosie1949
6 years agoirina_co
6 years agoRosie1949
6 years agoirina_co
6 years agoPoohBearLvr
6 years agoRosie1949
6 years agoJeff Zenner
6 years agoirina_co
6 years agofortyseven_gw
6 years agoirina_co
6 years agofortyseven_gw
6 years ago
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