WICK-WATERING CONTAINER

You will need • a lidded plastic food container (a clear plastic container is ideal) • capillary matting or felt material

• hydrophilic treated weedmat (eg. WeedStop High Absorption Garden Weedmat) • a piece of wood • a drill • scissors

Drill 2 holes in the lid of the container, drilling into the piece of wood to prevent the plastic from shattering. One of these holes should be in the centre and be big enough for a wick. The second should be slightly larger, and placed on the edge of the lid to enable easy top-ups with a watering can.

Cut a strip of capillary matting or felt about 1cm wide. Thread it through the centre hole in the lid and lay the outside end along the top of the lid. Fit the lid on the container, ensuring that the matting reaches the bottom.

Cut a circle of weedmat to fit the top of the container, covering the central hole and wick but not the side hole.

Fill the container with water and place your plant on top. Water the plant from the top to start the capillary action. In future, water your plant through the hole in the side of the lid. sunlight. Seedlings will quickly appear and can be separated once they are large enough to handle without damaging them.

In the years before Covid, Bruce’s American contact, Stephen Covolo-Hudson, once stopped in Auckland to see him and his plants whilst on a cruise and brought with him some seed (Customs-declared) from his own streptocarpus crosses.

Bruce grew a purple and pink fantasy from this seed that was named ‘Steffano’s Purple Tiger’ after its hybridiser. Bruce has also crossed this plant with another to create a new pale pink and purple fantasy (“fantasy” refers to the patterning).

Another special streptocarpus hybrid of Bruce’s is named ‘Second Chance’. He had thrown it in the general direction of the compost bin, thinking it was not healthy enough. Landing in the garden, the seedling survived – and thrived through a cold, wet winter. Bruce discovered it in spring, gave it a second chance and potted it up again, eventually enjoying a brilliant floral display (streptocarpus make good cut flowers too).

Streptocarpus flowers come in a range of colours – blue, purple, pink, red, pale lemon, white and maroon. There are many colour combinations too; some have white throats or a second colour veined through the flower. Fantasy flowers are streaked with two colours.

Carol Stewart lives down the road from Bruce. On either side of a tiled fireplace in her house, streptocarpus plants sit on window seats.

Bruce points out a well-known variety, ‘Falling Stars’ which was bred by Dibley’s Nurseries in Wales – an extremely floriferous hybrid that puts out masses of lavender flowers.

Carol had seen some streptocarpus in the late 1980s when she was a student and thought they were pretty. She got leaf cuttings from a friend and took them home, then later swapped cuttings with other friends.

Carol says her favourite thing about streptocarpus is the long show of blooms from spring to autumn.

Growing medium, care & maintenance

Carol grows her streptocarpus in ordinary potting mix and waters them from the top. Her tip is to water often in summer – two to three times a week – but remember that streptocarpus don’t like being too wet or too hot. Never leave them sitting in water.

Bruce places most of his streptocarpus on wick-watering containers with capillary matting wicks. This provides a moist surface for the pot to sit on, but it’s not damp enough for the soil to become waterlogged. If the soil dries out and the capillary action of the wick stops working, it is easy to tell because the water level in the container stays the same. To restart it, water the plant from the top. This method makes it easy to move plants around and they are readily removed from the wickwatering container. Most importantly, the constant moisture encourages full blooming.

Once plants are mature, encourage blooming with fruit and flower feed at quarter the recommended strength.

Streptocarpus are generally disease-free, but do get common pests such as aphids and mealy bugs.

Overall, Carol says she has found them much easier to grow than African violets and repots her plants once a year.

Bruce likes to “play around” with potting mixes and test new recipes. He prefers peat-based potting mixes (though many growers successfully use bark-based mixes), and reports that he has the best results using Canna Terra