Damas

It's really peaking now! 30 flowers and still more buds that haven't opened yet. Not a bad display for a miniature, eh?

African Violets And Pinball

So, once a week I go to pinball night at this guy JR's house. A few of us get together and play his zillion machines (Ok, like 100) and just have a blast. Not like a formal club, but I might as well call it that for lack of a better word.

When I first started going a few months ago, I noticed an African violet that needed repotting. JR informed me it was his girlfriend's, and I asked him to ask her for permission to repot it. At a later visit, he said that would be fine--I was thrilled! I'd really love to get it to bloom for her.

This weekend we all met up to do cleaning and maintenance on the machines to get them ready for the upcoming PinMaineia tournament. I brought my repotting supplies too, of course!

Cleaning Pin*Bot.. "Now I see you.."

After doing a thorough cleaning of Diner, Bad Cats, Cyclone, and my personal fave, Pin*Bot, I played a few games (gotta make sure they work after being cleaned, after all) and then finally got around to working on that plant!

Here's it is! It was potted in a heavy mix (I guarantee the soil mix it came in from the store), and a cute outer decorative pot.. Quite pretty, iridescent. All those yellow leaves need to come off, They're just not contributing anything to the plant at this point, and it needs to get free of that heavy soil.

The plant and plastic pot taken out of the decorative pot.

I plucked off the yellowest leaves and also removed ALL that old heavy store soil and left only the roots.

I repotted it into a smaller pot using my mix (1/2 African violet mix and 1/2 perlite), and set it up for wicking to make life easier for JR and his girlfriend.

All done! The wicking jar and new smaller pot all fit inside the pretty iridescent decorative one! (Yes, that was my goal) Much smaller now, but it will grow fast, and I think it'll be blooming in no time!

FYI: African Violets *CAN* Bloom Here

So I got home last night after my last few weeks in New Jersey and I have quite a few plants putting on a show for me. Perfect, now that the big National show has come and gone and no matter how hard I tried to trick them with increased lights and steam from boiling water all day every day, I couldn't get them to bloom their heads off for that!

Ness' Crinkle Blue

Oh well. With the crap going on in my life, I probably need the sight of these flowers right about now.

Damas

And thus begs the question: Disbud to start getting ready for fall shows, or just let them look pretty? Life circumstances are threatening to make it very difficult for me to attend MAAVS, NYSAVS, and TriState which I usually go to, so I may not even have anywhere to enter them anyway. What to do, what to do....?

Retail Therapy: Lyndon Lyon Greenhouses

Sorry I haven't updated the blog for 11 whole days, let's just say it's not been the best of times for me lately.

If I had some money (and you think I would since my birthday was only 4 days ago), I definitely know where I'd be blowing it all, because some retail therapy and new African violets is just what I need. The new and improved Lyndon Lyon Greenhouses website would do just the trick! You gotta go check it out, it's AWESOME!

Main page, what a lovely way to start the experience!

First off the new site doesn't just look great, it has a shopping cart so you can just click away and order 'til your heart's content! And you can make an account so that you can log in whenever you visit and not have to re-enter all your info every time--Boy oh boy, can they make it any easier to spend money? Loves it!

If anyone wants to send me the Pixie Redhead as a belated birthday present, I'd be more than ok with that. Or Sierra Sunrise. Ok, or any of the others haha!

AND the other cool thing about logging in is that it'll save the contents of your shopping cart for those times when you're kinda indecisive about an order... (C'mon, we all get that way.)

Lyndon Lyon Greenhouses has been a highly trusted, family owned commercial African violet supplier for almost 60 years, I am pretty sure that makes them the oldest around. (No, I'm NOT calling the owner Paul Sorano old, it was his Grandfather, THE Lyndon Lyon, who started it all!) So you know you can trust them for sure. And talk about variety! African violets in miniature, semi, standard, large, and trailers & chimeras in all sizes! Then of course lots of the "weeds" like Streps, Sinningias, Nematanthus, Chiritas, Columneas, and other gessies. And other houseplants like Begonia, Hoya, Pilea AND miniature terrarium plants. Lotsa supplies for all the myriad of plants as well, so go get shopping!

And if you do make an order from the new LLG site, leave a comment here and lemme know how you liked it? I'd love to hear how your experience was!.