Chimera African Violets
Do you have and want to learn how to propagate your chimera African Violets and don't know how? Post here and I'll be happy to help. I produce mine by encouraging them to sucker or by bloomstalk propagation. Let's post some photos and discuss our methods with those who may not have been brave enough to try.
Below is Yukako from Japan. This one is very easy for me to propagate because it produces large leaflets on the bloom stalks which make it stupid easy to grow baby chimeric replicas.
Yahichyo below is also from Japan and one of my favorites. The bloom stalk leaflets however are VERY small. Typically this one is more of a challenge to produce by that method though I find inserting them into damp sphagnum moss and sealing into baggies under bright light works about half of the time or more.
Alternatively this plant produces suckers readily that can be sliced off with an exacto knife and potted up in mix or sphagnum moss and root readily. Occasionally I will cut out the center of a crown, remove it to reroot (again very easy) and then the remaining stump with a few leaves left in the original pot will quickly begin to produce many suckers!
The leaf chimera known as Rob's Lucky Charm readily suckers prolifically. It is easy to separate the suckers with a sharp knife and pot them up in baggies for humidity.
I also once did an experiment with Rob's Lucky Charm where I cut one plant up into leaf pieces - but every leaf piece had some of the main stem and a dormant bud at the base of the petioles. I then potted up each leaf with the stem tissue and sealed into baggies and within a few weeks I had...
MANY Rob's Lucky Charm leaf chimeric plants! Only ONE of these did not come true to the parent and was discarded.
Chimeric trailers such as Pixie Runaround Sport or Rob's Miriwini are very easily propagated simply by dividing the crowns. Every time I repot these I find they have grown so crowded that I have to break up the crowns and often have some or many extras to trade. The same is true of leaf chimeras that are trailers. Generally these are the best chimeras to start with if you haven't ever grown chimeric African Violets before and do not wish to invest a lot of money into a single plant.
Lastly, BEWARE of what is offered for sale on Ebay. I see a /lot/ of plants listed for sale there as 'chimera' African Violets and many of them are not in fact flower nor leaf chimeras. If in doubt, always ask friends who are familiar with chimeras to have a look and give their opinion. Flower chimeras should have the 'pinwheel' stripe through the flower (even if it's faint) but there are a lot of look a likes that are NOT chimeras such as the bi-colored Optimaras. Leaf chimeras can be highly variable but generally have a strip of lighter or darker color up through the /center/ of the leaves.
I am looking to expand my own chimera African Violet collection. If you have extra plants or suckers you may wish to trade or sell, PM me. Or if you want to try to propagate your own but aren't sure how that is the purpose of this post! I'm glad to help and I encourage others to chime in. Chimeras are not propagated by leaves alone, like other African Violets, nor do they pass on the chimera patterns through seed.
Comments (23)
Hyn Patty
4 years ago
irina_co
4 years agoRelated Discussions
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Comments (36)Empress - just be cautious with adding all kind of stuff to your soil. I imagine that a cottonseed meal is a godsend for plants in a yard - but inside.. our soil doesn't have the bacteria to process it - so mold takes over. The standard mix - peat-perlite-vermiculite - is already on an acid side - and it gets more acid with time because wet peat desintegrates producing humic acid. You start with a balanced soil - and where it goes from there -depends on the water you use - some people have good city water - and some have well water with a lot of salts and high pH. I would really think that you be better sticking with a standard soil mix for some time and doing the experiments on one - two plants so you can decide is it for the better or not. Regarding cinnamon - if you have a mother leaf that started to rot - you had some on the pics you showed earlier - you cut the rotted tissue with a sharp knife - to the healthy one - dip Q-tip into cinnamon and treat the wound to prevent rot to return. If you just sprinkle the rot on the top - it doesn't help and covering leaves with cinnamon is not good too. Good Luck! Irina...See MoreHyn Patty
4 years agoHere is a photo of one of my Yachiyos recently decapitated. I removed the crown about a week ago to root it. Here you see how /tiny/ the leaflets are on the bloom stalks - but at least they are green. On some chimeras that have variegated foliage or pink flowers you sometimes get bloom stalks with little or no chlorophyll at all.
If you look closely at the cut stem area you will also see both new flower buds forming /and/ tiny leaves that will become suckers. I can remove the suckers over and over again when larger to pot up and root - but eventually I'll let /one/ sucker grow to replace the old crown. I will likely remove the flower buds once it becomes more clear which are flower buds and which are suckers to conserve the plant's energy into making the suckers.
Hyn Patty
4 years agoBloom stalks! Here is a sample of the tiny Yachiyo bloom stalks I have put down into damp sphagnum moss and sealed in a baggie. I did wash them with Dawn dish liquid (not anti-bacterial as that damages plant tissue) and luke warm water to reduce chance of fungal or bacterial rot. You can see one of the bloom stalks did die and rot but the others are doing fine two weeks later. Some people put them directly into soil. If you don't have success with your soil mix, try using straight perlite or sphagnum.
By comparison, here is a Yukako bloom stalk with much larger leaflets. These are easier to grow into new plants so I put them into soil mix. Only two weeks later you can already see the new plantlets forming. This one also is sealed into a baggie. I don't like to open them and possibly contaminate them.
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