African Violets – Cleansing Foliage

With precautions of light (growing under fluorescent light is a option) and temperature observed, occasional top syringing will tend to be refreshing and beneficial, cleansing foliage of dust and stimulating new growth. In greenhouses syringing with the hose is routine and many a housewife with glorious violets gives them a light Saturday morning shower “whether they need it or not” with a sprayer attached to the faucet at the kitchen sink. Do not be afraid this procedure will cause leaf spot. At Ohio State University the reason for that unattractive foliage condition was discovered by Hort Department. This is the report of their Saintpaulia experiment:

“The plants were grown in a low light intensity about four hundred to six hundred foot candles in the usual commercial manner. When either ice or bits of cold metal or glass objects were placed on the leaf, spotting developed in about twenty-four to forty-eight hours. Of course, the same type of spotting occurred if the water temperature was ten degrees lower than the house temperature. To illustrate, African violets are generally grown [in the greenhouse] at sixty degrees night temperature and if water at fifty degrees was splashed on the leaf, spotting would develop within three days. In one experiment, the African violets were placed in a refrigerator at fifty degrees and water at fifty degrees was splashed on them after the plants were uniformly cool. No spotting developed under these conditions.”

“The conclusions of this work was that if cold water was used, it should never be splashed on the foliage, but instead should be applied directly to the soil. The most satisfactory method, of course, is to use water at the same temperature at which die plant is grown.”

Related Articles Of Interest:

• African Violets – Temperature and Ventilation
• African Violets My Way – Part 3
• African Violet Videos
• African Violets Virus or Water Spots