1. Variegated, like all other violets, depending on the variety, can be very capricious and difficult to breed, or vice versa, they can be very resilient and flowering abundantly.
So, variegated varieties with green flowers, such as' Frozen in Time ', bloom very long and abundantly.
2. Variegated leaves can be divided by leaf color into the following groups:
- Fringing variegation, when the leaves are edged with white, beige, pink or yellow. It looks like a lace frill at the leaves, very in harmony with the flowers: 'Raspberry Rampade', 'RebelTs Valiant', 'Pink Sensation', 'BucKeye Crenberry Sparkle', 'BucKeye Colossal', 'BocKeye urnished Halo', etc
- Crown variegation, when the center of the rosette, young leaves are almost completely brightened, sometimes completely white or pink. Сорта 'FredetteТs Risen Star', 'Private Dancer', 'Apahe Spring'.
- Mosaic variegation, when all leaves are evenly covered with strokes and spots of a different color, or lighter green.
Standard varieties with mosaic variegation do not bloom abundantly, with small flowers. Beauty lies more in the outlet itself. But there are miniature varieties with beautiful blooms: 'DeanTs Aguarius', 'MacTs Just', 'RobTs Zippity Doo'.
Sometimes variegation appears spontaneously in ordinary varieties. For example, I have a mosaic variegation of the variety 'Valeska Blue', its leaves are covered with green and yellow strokes .
3. Very effective variegated leaves with wavy leaves, such as' Apache Freedom ',' Royal Rade ',' Alamo ',' Gold Rush '. Their sockets are beautiful and without flowers. In the most variegated, it is difficult to achieve abundant flowering, and at the end of flowering they rest longer. The first flowering also has to wait quite a long time, only a well-developed rosette gives peduncles.
4. When breeding variegated leaf cuttings, the greenest leaf is taken for rooting. Green leaf cells contain more chlorophyll, which provides the process of photosynthesis in the light. It is photosynthesis that provides the energy necessary for plant life and development. In the bright areas of the leaf, chlorophyll is absent, if such areas prevail, then there is not enough energy for rooting and development of children. Such leaves also poorly tolerate long-term transportation, transfer - they die on the road or later.
In my experience, for reproduction and rooting it is better to cut a leaf with a short petiole, rooting is faster, the petiole rots less often. You should not take a very large leaf, even on the contrary, if the leaves are too large, then the top half can be cut off from the mother's leaf.
There is also an opinion of collectors that variegated leaves are better rooted immediately in the ground. This makes sense: as soon as the roots begin to grow, the leaf will receive food. It is necessary to prevent decay of the petiole before it has time to take root well (uniform moistening of the soil, good air permeability - due to the introduction of vermiculite or perlite). Sometimes, good results are obtained by pre-treatment of the soil with a fungicide, for example, with the preparations "phytosporin" or "maxim." It is just as good if small pieces of charcoal are added to the soil. The substrate for rooting leaves should be sufficiently nutritious, contain more nitrogen than soil for adult flowering cultivars.
5. If, after rooting the leaf, completely white or yellowish children appeared, it is necessary to ensure that green leaves appear. White children without a mother's leaf are not viable, they cannot be seated. To make the baby "green" faster, it is necessary to top up with urea (1g per 1l of water) or use fertilizer for ornamental deciduous plants containing a larger amount of nitrogen. Lighting needs to be made less bright, and choose the warmest place.
It is better not to try to root difficult varieties in the hot season (June-July), the best time for this is spring.
6. After the children are seated, another problem may arise: the variegation almost or completely disappears. This happens for a combination of reasons:
- the soil is too nutritious for this grade, contains a lot of nitrogen. You can transplant the violet into another soil or wait for the nitrogen to be partially used up. In the presence of incompletely decayed organic residues in the substrate, nitrogen will be constantly produced. It will take a long time to wait, such a substrate is not suitable for variegated leaves.
- too high acidity of the substrate when the pH is below 5.5. 7-10 days before transplanting the senpolia baby into the ground, it is necessary to add dolomite flour - 1 tbsp. a spoon for 10 liters of earthen mixture, you can use eggshells. This is necessary to reduce the acidity of the soil. The normal pH is about 6. the temperature of
- 25 ° C and above is kept in the room for a long time, especially in low light. This can happen when transplanting violets in autumn and winter, when the heating is on, and there is little natural light (and in summer in the heat). You can try to fix the situation by rearranging the pots in a cooler place and arranging additional lighting for 10-12 hours. In general, variegated violets grow better and "keep the color" at a temperature in the range of 18-21 ° C.
Summing up, we can say that variegated varieties of senpoli need nutritious soil, but somewhat different in composition than for ordinary varieties, namely, containing less nitrogen. But more diffused light is needed and they are less able to tolerate the heat.
White areas of leaves are especially affected by direct sunlight (burn occurs very quickly). In addition, the almost white leaves are very fragile, but. As observations show, ticks do not really like them.
The author of the article Rusinova T.A., Photographs of Elena the Beautiful
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