Friday, August 1, 2014

Petrocosmea

After a good brunch and tea with a good friend of mine, I was welcomed by packages left at my front door. It was nearly 105 degrees today, causing me to be immediately concerned about the condition the leaves or tubers might be in. I was expecting a package of petrocosmea leaves along with tubers of micro sinningias. Both packages arrived on time, and I made sure to open them as soon as I can. The petrocosmea leaves were a little limp, but removing the dried ends of the petiole to expose a fresh tissue layer, and submerging the exposed end in reverse osmosis water is enough to revive them.


These are my petrocosmea leaves taking a drink. I've received p. tiny tim, p. tim tuttle, and p. momo leaves. P. asa blue and p. ceorulea 'A' leaves were given as a gift. After these leaves take a drink, I then wash them with some diluted Murphy's Oil Soap to get rid of any pests that might've tagged along. The petiole gets cut once more, and the leaf is then placed in fresh potting soil. Pots are labelled with the date of potting, and the hybrid or species name.

Micro sinningia pictures will be posted later.

Thursday, July 31, 2014

Micro Sinningias

I've tried many times to sow micro sinningia seeds without success. I've started with a purchase of a seed pack of Sinningia 'White Sprite', which is essentially the same as a S. pusilla except it has white flowers rather than purple. I had no luck with the seeds mostly because I forget to water them and keep the soil moist enough. This time around, I've decided to wick water my soil mix rather than manually water them by hand. That way, I can always just refill the reservoir and never worry about the soil being too dry. Upon receiving free S. muscicola and S. bright eyes seeds from another gesneriad hobbyist, I've decided to try my luck with seeds once more. Here are a few pictures of the seeds and the container with the wicking system.



I accidentally placed the tissue paper with the muscicola seeds on a drop of water that I didn't see. Good thing was, the paper dried up quickly, and I made sure the wet seeds were sowed instead of stored. I didn't sow all of them because then I'd have too many muscicola plants.


Holes were poked at the bottom of this pringles container where a black acrylic yarn was threaded through. I put a layer of perlite at the bottom in case of any standing water that might cause rot. I mixed my potting mix of HP Pro Mix with equal parts of perlite for better drainage since I'm wick watering rather than manual watering. I sowed the extremely tiny seeds by pressing my finger on the pile of seeds to pick a few up, and rubbing my index finger and thumb to sprinkle the seeds over the soil evenly. There's no need to cover the seeds with a layer of soil since they're already very small. A plastic wrap was used for increased humidity. 

And now, all we do is wait for the seeds to sprout :)

Saturday, July 26, 2014