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News Letter 

July, 1950 

Dear Friends: 
Mercy, but it’s hot, ain’t it? Am still puzzling 
about the people who swear the heat kills their 
African Violets. Our greenhouse is the hottest 
place for miles around in the middle of the day 
(100 and over) and it doesn’t seem to hurt them. 
They dry out a good bit in that heat, of course, 
and we’re always watering out there on hot days. 
Otherwise they don’t seem to mind. 
But to continue with show plants. Multiple- 
crowns. You can manage these one of two ways, 
one easy, one very very difficult. The first way 
is to pot the several crowns deep enough in the 
pot so that the crowns lose all identity in them- 
selves—all growing up. You have to be careful 
to line the edge of the pot with foil or coat it with 
paraffin so that your outer leaves won’t chafe. 
With four or five crowns (should be rather crowd- 
ed for best effect) growing together in this man- 
ner, the effect is of one big, full, lush “pot of 
violets.” This method is successful with a limited 
number of varieties. The spreading tendency of 
the DuPonts, for example, or the Supremes or 
some of the smaller girl types would eliminate 
them from this type of culture. Ionantha, Tinted 
Lady, West Coast Amethyst, Pink Beauty, White 
Lady (this is about the only way, in fact, in which 
White Lady can be shown successfully since it is 
so hard to keep it single-crown) and many others 
do well. 
The other, hard way is to place only two or 
three crowns in a pot with the soil at a high 
level. The effect to be striven for here is an even 
two or three-faced plant. Each crown should be 
the same size, with approximately the same num- 
Copyright, July, 1950, Russell Gray 
