Whether to grow trailing gesneriads in pots, hanging baskets, or other African violet relatives, the choice may depend on the availability of suitable containers.
Ordinary clay pots can be used, but so-called “orchid pots,” with extra holes for drainage, are probably a better choice.
In either case, a generous layer of “crocks” should be placed at the bottom of the pot to ensure perfect drainage.
Pots And Hanging Baskets
The pots may be placed on shelves or suspended from hangers. Hangers for orchid pots are available online or from garden supply stores.
The gardener can make satisfactory ones out of old wire coat hangers or, even better, use galvanized wire or a piece of aluminum wire clothesline.
Hanging baskets can be purchased from big box stores and garden centers or improvised from plastic-molded bread baskets.
They may be made easily and inexpensively out of one-inch square welded wire mesh fencing, obtainable in short lengths from a mail-order house.
Hangers are easily made from steel “S” hooks combined with a brass-plated flat sash chain from the hardware department.
Hanging baskets are best lined with “sheet moss,” peeled from logs and rocks in deep moist woodlands or from florist supply houses.
Sphagnum moss can be used for lining baskets, but it is much harder to manage than sheet moss.
Convenient support for a hanging basket is one of the bird cage hangers which are readily available.
If episcias, columneas, or aeschynanthus are to be trained upward to form a pyramid or a fan, the supports must be provided and inserted in the pots.
Wire or bamboo sticks with sphagnum moss tied are sometimes used, as are the recently available Hawaiian fern roots.
Five Trailing Gesneriads
Episcias are sometimes grown to spread horizontally over a large circular or oval tray.
All of the trailing gesneriads, except episcia, are epiphytic plants.
That is, they grow naturally on trees and rocks in the jungle.
The tropical combination of frequent rains and absence of soil—with the roots of the epiphytes covered only, for example, by leaf mold and forest litter in the crotch of a tree—is a growing condition that is not easy to provide indoors. Still, it can be approximated without too much trouble.
Soil for the trailing gesneriads must be light and porous, providing perfect drainage and, at the same time, retaining moisture in some of its spongy portions.
At the Missouri Botanical Gardens in St. Louis, columneas and episcias are grown to perfection in a “soil” composed of equal parts of chopped fern roots and sphagnum moss.
All five trailing gesneriads can be grown in sphagnum moss alone if occasionally watered with a nutrient solution.
Soil For Baskets
At Cornell University, such plants are grown in half coarse peat moss and half fibrous loam, surrounded by fern roots used as a basket liner.
I often use, with complete success, a soil composed of equal parts of shredded moss, coarse vermiculite, chicken charcoal, and rotted dairy manure.
The latter has been well leached by weathering out-of-doors and is sterilized before use to avoid insects and fungi.
No matter what soil mixture you choose for growing these trailing plants, remember that moisture and air in the root area are requisite 10 satisfactory growth.
Occasional watering with a nutrient solution, perhaps once every two weeks during the summer, will ensure a sufficient supply of plant food, even when the hanging baskets are planted with a relatively inert medium, such as vermiculite, moss, or fern roots.
Fertilizers And Trace Minerals
Time-clean, odorless, completely soluble crystal fertilizers should be used according to the manufacturers’ directions.
These have many advantages over the messy infusions of organic materials, but the plants are unmindful of the source so long as they get sufficient nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium.
The organic material in the soil used to fill the baskets will supply all the “trace minerals” that the plants need.
The only beneficial addition might be a teaspoonful of ground limestone sprinkled over the surface at a potting time to ensure a supply of calcium.
It is impossible to over-water the plants in a hanging basket filled with a suitably coarse and porous soil mixture.
However, all five trailing-type gesneriads discussed here have been allowed to dry out severely, time and again, without apparent harm during the flowering season, except that the flowers may drop off if water is withheld too long.
When copious watering is resumed, the buds open, and new flowers soon clothe the plant.
Indoor Light Requirements
Indoors, even in a south window, it probably is impossible to give too much sunlight to one of these plants.
Under glasshouse conditions, however, it will be necessary to supply shade during the summertime.
At least half shade is a requirement, and episcias will welcome ¾ shade or even less light.
Related: Growing African Violets under Fluorescent Lights
During the summertime, episcia pots may be placed under the benches at the edge of the aisle.
Being good house plants, the trailing gesneriads prefer temperatures that we find most comfortable.
An exception, perhaps, is that the plants stand high temperatures better—above 90°Fahrenheit—if the air is moist (high relative humidity).
Human beings are more comfortable if the humidity is low during hot weather.
All these tropical plants are sensitive to cold to a greater or lesser degree.
Episcias are particularly tender and severely damaged if the air temperature goes below 50° degrees Fahrenheit.
Small plants of episcia have been killed by exposure of only a few hours to a temperature of 45° degrees Fahrenheit.
Tolerant Of Cold Temperatures
Columneas and aeschynanthus, on the other hand, can stand near-freezing temperatures without apparent injury, while codonanthe and hypocyrta seem to be intermediate in their tolerance of cold temperatures.
The window gardener, therefore, is advised to treat episcias during the winter months as tenderly as African violets concerning placing them near drafts or cold window panes.
Easy Gesneriad Propagation
Propagation is easy with all gesneriads, and the trailing kinds are no exception.
Columnea, episcia, and aeschynanthus seed are sometimes available and can be handled like gloxinia or streptocarpus seed.
Because of the vigorous growth of the trailing plants, propagation by stem cuttings is most often practiced.
The ease and safety with which uprooted cuttings can be mailed in polyethylene bags to arrive in the freshest imaginable condition have made this the popular way to acquire such plants.
Small potted plants of the most commonly grown kinds are available from dealers at low prices, considering the comparative scarcity of some species.
In the case of episcias, the runners may be cut off, rooted, or pinned down in an adjoining pot and not severed in front of the parent plant until rooting occurs.
The woodier plants, such as most columneas, can be rooted more successfully if half-ripe wood is taken rather than the soft tips of stems.
Codonanthe, as has been noted earlier, roots spontaneously in moist air.
Aeschynanthus cuttings of ripened wood are usually taken with only two pairs of leaves above the rooting medium.
44659 by Paul Arnold