Groupies are everywhere

Groupies are everywhere.

            You never know when you’ll run into some of your groupies.

            These three young people came to the Delaware Gesneriad Show and Sale in Wilmington.  They had come from Philadelphia to look at interesting plants and buy some.

            When they saw that my plants were there with the recognizable blue tags, they were even more surprised that I was there in person.

            They proceeded to tell me that they have been following my ‘Mini’ plants, looking for varieties they don’t have.  They’ve been to many of my customer’s garden centers and plant shops in and around Philadelphia.

            I guarantee you that these delightful plant collectors are not normal   They knew botanical names and what the hottest trends are with houseplants.  There are few young people as knowledgeable as they are.

            I hope to meet them again.

Delaware Gesneriad Society Show and Sale, September 29, 2018

Primulina 'Diane Marie', BIS, 2017

Delaware African Violet and Gesneriad Society (DAVGS) Plant Sale and Show

Where: Delaware Center for Horticulture
When: September 29, 2018
Time: 10 am to 5 pm
Cost: FREE

Asian Violet Workshop

Where: Delaware Center for Horticulture
When: September 29, 2018
Time: 10 am to 11 am
Cost: $15  DCH Members;   $25 Non-DCH Members
Additional Information/Register:  https://www.thedch.org/activities-events/calendar-events/event/asian-violet-workshop

Asian violets, botanically know as primulinas are the newest plant to hit our shores vying for our attention. With their distinctive foliage and ease of growth, they are always a delight to look at and grow, even when not in bloom. These plants, which hail from China and Viet Nam, will be featured in a very special workshop sponsored by the Delaware Center for Horticulture (DCH) and the Delaware African Violet and Gesneriad Society (DAVGS).

This fast-paced one-hour hands-on lecture will provide you with:

·       The cultural information you need to grow these versatile plants in your home – under lights, on the windowsill, and in the warmer weather, outside;

·       Instructions on how and when to pot up primulinas;

·       The hands-on experience of potting up a primulina which you will take home

·       The hands-on experience of propagating a leaf from a primulina which you will also take home

·       The opportunity to ask questions of the session facilitators, who all grow primulinas and have won prizes for them.

Each workshop participant will go home with one primulina and another pot holding their newly propagated leaf.

Best of all, the workshop is being given concurrently with the DAVGS’s Annual Show and Sale. After the workshop you are invited to inspect the show (which is open to the public for free) and purchase more primulinas (and other gesneriads, including African violets) at the sale. 

Both DCH and DAVGS invite you to participate in the workshop, see the show and enjoy the nearby Taste of Trolley Square celebration later that afternoon. We hope to see you at the workshop and/or the show.

About DCH: https://www.thedch.org/

About DAVGS: http://www.davgs.org/

Violet and Gesneriad Show

Sinningia 'Prudence Risley'

Please join us for a very special show and sale, featuring Venetian opera masks decorated with violets and unique arrangements inspired by Venetian balconies.

Where:  
Delaware Center for Horticulture
1810 North DuPont Street
Wilmington, DE

When: 

· Friday October 6th, 2017 from 3:00 to 7pm during the Art Loop

· Saturday October 7th, 2017, from 9am to 4pm

Parking and admission:  Free

Additional Information:  http://www.davgs.org/(bottom of page) or schaeffermary@yahoo.com

     An invitation from the Delaware African Violet and Gesneriad Society to their judged Flower Show.  There will be interesting plants for you to see and buy.

Delaware AVS and Gesneriad Society Display and Sale

Primulina 'Loki'  for sale

Once again, Boscov’s will host the Delaware chapter’s annual Palm Sunday weekend extravaganza.

This year we’ll have an exhibit, sale and a few short workshop lectures.  With setup on Friday morning, we’ll be ready for the public by 12 noon on Friday. The event closes at 4 PM on Saturday. For those using a GPS, the address is 361 West Main Street, Christiana, DE. And we’re up on the second floor.

The plant sale promises to be something really special with plants from Gary’s Specialty Plants, Fancy Bloomers and some pretty unusual member grown plants. I know for a fact, we’ll have micro sinningias, some drymonias, some streptocarpellas, some sinningia hybrids and more.

Hope to see you there.

Mary Schaeffer

'Dibley's Gold' is a well kept secret.

Nematanthus 'Dibley's Gold' - Original plant - 3 years old

Story # 105,


‘Dibley’s Gold’ is a well kept secret.


      Nematanthus ‘Dibley’s Gold’ is a very attractive foliage plant.  Having naturally shiny leaves and yellow variegation on dark green, it stands out among other more subtle greens.


      I can’t find the history so I will just give credit to Dibley’s Greenhouse in North Wales, U.K., for discovering a mutation of Nematanthus gregarius and propagating it for distribution.


      All of my stock plants came from a rooted cutting by Quentin Schlieder, on the sales table of our Delaware African Violet and Gesneriad Society meeting.


      That original plant has had many trimmings for tip cuttings over the last several years and has been my reliable specimen plant to enter in shows.  It always looks good.  267 pots have been sold.  Why such a low number?  That’s all that I could ever produce.


      After the third year, I got a few orange candy corn flowers but you don’t really need them.


      I don’t see it in commercial production, probably because of its slow growth.


      But ‘Dibley’s Gold’ is worth having ---- a very easy houseplant.

Delaware African Violet and Gesneriad Show

Streptocarpus will be for sale at the Delaware African Violet and Gesneriad Show
Saturday, 23 March

Story # 98


The Delaware African Violet and Gesneriad Show


When: Saturday March 23; 10-4


Where: Boscov's Christiana Town Center store – 2nd floor; off Route 273 in Christiana, Delaware


  What’s for Sale: Sinningias, Streps and Other Goodies from Gary’s Specialty Plants, Violets from the Violet Gallery, 40-50 Kohlerias (grown by members), other rare gesneriads grown by Quentin and other chapter members + Optimaras and decorative pots.


What Else: Achimenes ‘Desiree’ rhizomes for the first 100 attendees; People’s Choice Award and of course, lots of great show plants grown by members


We hope you’ll join us. If you’re driving and need an address for your GPS, use 361 W Main St, Christiana DE


It is not the Christiana Mall.

Can we make a species better?

Codonanthe devosiana (formerly digna)


Story # 79,

      Can we make a species better than it already is?  Is it possible to improve on a species that has survived for untold millions of years in the wild?


      I learned the original definition of a botanical ‘species’ as a plant found in nature that is uniform in it’s characteristics and comes true (identical to the parent) when self-pollinated.


      So if they are all identical then how can they be improved?  It seems that the modern day definition is not as rigid and some species are variable and in some cases can have different colored flowering forms within the species.


      The plant that I want to improve is Codonanthe digna, a small trailing plant with small bell shaped white flowers and orange berries. (The name was carnosa, then digna.  It may now be devosiana).  Well grown plants will self-branch and get a flower at every leaf axil.  It could be a commercial plant in the terrarium market if crop time could be speeded up.


      My proposal is to grow quantities of seed crops of Codonanthe and select for speed and flower size.  In every measurable step, we select the best.  Save the first to germinate and from them, the first to flower.  If flower size improves, of course, save them.  Record the times so we can see if any improvement is made in successive generations.


      Does science support this plan?  I think so.  Plants have been improved by intercrossing species within a Genius.  This is self-pollinating a species and hope for variability. In nature seed germinates at varying rates to insure survivability, so we will just select the fastest.


      Since no one has tried to improve Codonanthe digna, the story is not yet written.  But nothing can be lost in trying since all plants, fast or slow, can be sold.  If somehow flower size improves then all the observation will pay off.


      There is a pink flowered form of Codonanthe from Brazil that we are attempting to establish.  The goal there will be to select for the brightest pink.  Then cross the white with the pink and see if we get hybrid vigor and a big, bright, pink flower on a tough little trailing plant.  But that’s a different story.

Codonanthe devosiana- Pink form (formerly digna)

This story was first published in the Delaware African Violet and Gesneriad Society newsletter and then shown in Gleanings.

Can't shake the flowers off!

Sinningia 'Stone's Yulia' grown by Gary's Specialty Plants

Story # 64,


      Can’t shake the flowers off!


      It’s always a challenge to time the flowering of your entry into a flower show.  The frustration is when you get it in prime condition and then the flowers fall off during the packing and transport to the show    

     So here’s the plant for you.  In my very scientific experiment I’ve determined that you can not shake the flowers off of Sinningia ‘Stone's Yulia’.


      It traveled to the Mid-Atlantic Gesneriad show (1 hour), to Longwood Gardens (1 hour) and to the Delaware AVS meeting (1 hour) and home again (6 hours of bouncing) without losing a flower.

 
      The first flower to open has finally gone past after 15 days, but it has not fallen off. 

Be part of the story

Sinningia 'Colorado Sunset' for sale

     Yes, tomorrow, Sunday, 30 September is the Mid-Atlantic Gesneriad Show, Sale and Symposium at the University of Delaware.-------- 531 South College Ave, Newark------ 10 to 4

     Why read about it when you can go there and see unusual plants shown by skilled hobbyist.

What if we hold a flower show and everybody comes?

Ladyspipper Streptocarpus 'Blue Ice'

Story # 49,


      What if we hold a flower show and everybody comes?


      The first ever Mid-Atlantic Regional Gesneriad Show, Sale and Symposium will be held on September 29, 30, 2012.  Details are here.http://gesneriadsociety.org/chapters/DAVS/files/RegionalShow.pdf


      The idea of a Gesneriad show on the East coast was proposed by Quentin Schlieder, past President of the Delaware African Violet and Gesneriad Society.  The idea was to have a show in the Fall as a competition with members of the three nearby chapters----Liberty Bell of Philadelphia, the National Capital Area and Delaware.


      The Delaware chapter is hosting the first event at Townsend Hall,  531 South College Avenue, University of Delaware, Newark.  The show is free and open to the public on Sunday, September 30 from 10 to 4.


      In all the planning that Quentin and his committees have done, the question is always-------How many people will come?


      It takes a lot to move people.  There are so many things to see and do, including nothing, it’s amazing that anything new gets attention.


      My part is, together with Mary Schaeffer, to manage the plant sale.  We will have many collector Gesneriads that hobbyist seek.  Once you learn about the Gesneriad family of plants, it is additive.


      I will be supplying finished plants similar to what goes to my commercial wholesale market.  They will be shown here as the show approaches.




Ladyslipper Streptocarpus 'Pinot'



The 'Prudence Risley' Project!

Sinningia 'Prudence Risley' grown by Jon Lindstrom



 Story # 35,


The ‘Prudence Risley’ Project!


      The ‘Prudence Risley’ project all started when I decided that this red trumpet flowered Sinningia could be sold if we only could produce them.


      Tissue culture was the answer.  If we could get the variety established in a Tissue Culture lab perhaps small numbers could be produced.  At the time, two years ago, I was establishing a working relationship with Dr Jon Lindstrom, Associate Professor of Horticulture at the University of Arkansas.  He agreed to attempt production of ‘Prudence Risley’ if I could make a donation to his Sinningia research at the University.


      So where to get the money?


      My idea evolved to offer shares in the project which would help support his Sinningia hybridizing research (an implied goal of the Gesneriad Society).  In exchange for a $20 share, a donor was entitled to a ‘Prudence Risley’ plant when they could be produced-------possibly a wait of a year.


      The project was presented to my three local plant chapters------ Delaware African Violet and Gesneriad Society, the Liberty Bell chapter and the National Capital Chapter of the Gesneriad Society.  I was happy that many individuals saw that as a worthwhile bet and bought shares at $20 per plant.  When the goal of $1,000 was near, the Delaware AVS chapter donated the shortfall.


     This all worked out.  ‘Prudence Risley’ was successfully produced by tissue culture and the donors got their plant.  I thank all who helped.


     Since then tissue culture production has continued and the ‘Prudence Risley’ project allowed a new hybrid to be introduced to the plant world.