African Violets and Gesneriads: Two piece ceramic self water pots and gessies, 2 by gessieviolet

gessieviolet wrote:
I have accidentally discovered a way to give my streptocarpus steady, but not over, water.

My problem was either over watering to the point of creating root rot or waiting too long to water. Once they wilted and were watered, growth and bloom was interrupted for me; could never seem to hit the happy mid point.

One day I sat a 4" pot of streps into an empty 2 pc pot that had water in the outer pot, to get it out of the way. A few days later I noticed it seemed to stay turgid and green; I lifted the 4" pot and realized there was a small amount of water under the plant that was being wicked by the string in the plant.

What would happen if I put a small amount of perlite in the inner pot and sat the planted pot on top of it?

It works--the perlite stays moist; the plant wicks moisture as if it is on a mat. Now all I have to remember to do is keep water in the outer reservoir.

These photos show my results. First 2 photo are simply my Atusu Nama unassembled and assembled, I have trimmed away about 8 spent stalks of blooms. The 3rd is a photo of Red Hot Mama plant directly into the inner pot, I am not nearly as pleased with its progress as with the other.