I really love my Chirita tamiana, which is blooming again and I just could admire it all day! I think I've heard you can propagate these by leaf, just like AVs, but they take longer to send up babies because they first form a tuber underground. Am I remembering correctly? Any helpful hints before I whack off a couple leaves from my prize plant?
Starting Chiritas by leaf?
no, it's the sinningias that spend time seemingly doing nothing (and growing a tuber).
Chiritas are easy from leaf - or so they say. I've managed to rot every Chirita leaf but one so far. (I'm going to check on that one this weekend when I catch up on the plants.)
However, I have never tried tamiana from leaf and would imagine it to be as easy as an AV. On the other hand, they are also incredibly easy from seed. I think the time to first blooms will be about the same for seeds and leaves, as they can bloom from seed in a few months.
Mine is flowering now, but I have no idea how to get it to produce seeds... Also, I have had mixed luck with seeds. I am always willing to give it a try, though! What do I need to do to get seeds? Any tricks for germinating them? I'll try the leaf method also and see what ends up working best for me.
Thanks!
--Dana
I just got a pair of lovely little Chirita tamianas (thanks!), and one seems to be sending out a stolon-like structure with a little cluster of leaves at the end. I thought you could pin those down into the pot and have them root.... couldn't you then separate them from the mother plant once rooted & pot them up? That's more like propagating from sucker than from leaf, but should work... ?
tamiana should propagate any possible way and more. This is the infamous one that gave me about 800 viable seedlings from one seed pod. Stolons/crowns will root, most definitely.
A healthy plant should start setting seed pretty easily (just shake the flowers. lol). The ones I have now are setting seed frequently (though I'm cutting them off) - these plants are a little over a year old and have been potted deep once (I buried the neck).
I have a new depository for my gesneriad propagation tips at my photo site: http://www.flickr.com/groups/gesneriads/