Well, it happened. I was watering my plants yesterday evening and on impulse, checked on my leaves, and there they were — tiny plantlets poking up from one of my Rivermist Sizzle leaves! 😮
If you’ve been following along, you know I’ve been testing Fluval Stratum — as a propagation medium for my African violet leaves. (This is an affiliate link — if you purchase through it, I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.) I covered what it is and why it might work well for AV propagation in my first post, and now we’ve got an actual update to talk about.
The Timeline So Far
I planted these leaves in stratum on June 29th. Today is August 5th, which puts us a little over five weeks into the experiment.
For context, here’s roughly what I typically expect with my usual soil and perlite method:
– Rooting: Usually takes about two weeks to a month
– Plantlets appearing: Usually another month or two after that
So by that math, I wasn’t expecting to see plantlets until sometime until in late August at the earliest. Seeing them at five weeks is genuinely earlier than I anticipated.
PRO TIP: If you’re propagating and feeling impatient (no judgment, we’ve all been there), resist the urge to dig around and check on your leaf’s progress. Disturbing the stem while it’s trying to root can do more harm than good.
How the Rest of the Leaves Are Doing
The good news doesn’t stop there — the rest of my leaves in the stratum are all looking healthy…even the one I had to do minor surgery on to get rid of a bit of decay. That was my fault entirely, leaves shouldn’t be touching each other in such a moist environment. Other than that, no mush, no rot, no leaves that gave up on me. Every other leaf is just quietly doing its thing.
I’m calling myself cautiously optimistic at this point. One early plantlet doesn’t mean that stratum is definitively “better” than my usual methods. This could be a case of a particularly strong leaf — but it’s a promising sign, and I’ll keep watching to see if the rest follow on a similar timeline.
What’s Next?
I’ll keep tracking all the leaves and update you as more plantlets (hopefully) show up. If the rest of the batch roots and sprouts on a similar timeline, that’ll tell me a lot more about whether this is a genuine speed advantage or if that Rivermist Sizzle leaf is just an overachiever by nature.
Curious to see the plantlets for yourself? I’ve got the full update on video — check it out on YouTube!
Have you ever had one leaf in a batch surprise you by rooting way faster than the others? Drop a comment and let me know — I love hearing about your propagation wins.