Friday, November 13, 2009

Can CUTTINGS from "african violet" generate male plants only?

Some of my SAINTPAULIAS simply grow new circles of leaves, like cabbages do if you leave them grow in the kitchen garden for too long, but they haven't got any flowers.


Someone told me that mine are MALE plants and obviously will never give flowers. In this case I agree, but how can that be possible?


I cut some leaves from well-grown older plants to make new ones (the normal way everybody suggests) and this is the disappointing result!!!


And of course I'VE NEVER READ anywhere that such a thing might happen with saintpaulia's leaves.


Everywhere they say: simply plant your leaves and keep soil moist and new beautiful plants will grow and GIVE FLOWERS, which IS TOTALLY FALSE in my case!!!!


Have you any idea about that? Can "MALE PLANTS ONLY" stem from some of the leaves one uses to create new plants??

Can CUTTINGS from "african violet" generate male plants only?
My grandmother was a big african violet fan and obtained most of hers by cuttings (she had 3-4 dozen throughout her house at the height of her collection). Most, if not all, of which bloomed. They do have to mature - i think it may have been 2-3 years before they would actually bloom.





African violets can be picky, my mother was good at rooting and growing, but where my grandmother would have a dozen or so in bloom at once and 2 or three times a year, my mother would only get maybe 1 or 2 blooms once in great while.





I don't really know that much more about the african violet, but generally speaking, propagation from rooting stems creates clones, so as long as your taking a cutting from a plant that has bloomed, the rooting should bloom at once the conditions are right.





Good Luck.


1 comment:

  1. "Someone" is silly :) If your African violets don't bloom it's more likely they need to be repotted, fertilized and/or given better light.
    Most likely ALL of the above!

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