There are endless possibilities in gloxinia hybridization. Most of the species will cross successfully with hybrid forms. And since the species have a richness and flexibility of foliage that is lacking in modern forms, they should be good material for you to use in your hybridizing program.

Should some of your hybrids impress you and your customers as really choice, you may want to work on the strain. Do it by self-pollinating the plants or by pollinating the hybrids with one of the parents, depending on which trait you wish to encourage and enlarge upon.

One of my most beautiful slipper strains resulted from a cross between a wide-faced white-and-purple gloxinia and a pink form of Sinningia species. From this cross came a range of huge, ruffled, pink-flushed, white slipper gloxinias. As I lacked room to grow them on, I sold some of the tubers to a florist who was eager to propagate them.
Another beautiful batch of gloxinias came from a cross I made between a pink slipper and S. macrophylla. Flowers were in shades of blue, lavender, and deep purple; foliage was intermediate between the two parents—light olive-green, soft rose underneath. A commercial grower tested these seeds for me, as I lacked space for a fair trial. He declared that he had never had so beautiful a group of slipper types as had come from these seeds. To preserve the seed strain, I grew a few and I supply one commercial house with about fifty tubers of these a year. I receive 40 cents apiece for these. I also include some of the seeds in my gesneriad mixture.

Crosses to Try
Here are some other interesting crosses to try: Use the handsome, white-veined, green-leaved S. regina, with nodding purple flowers, as the seed parent; for the pollen parent, any of the wide-faced newer hybrids. Try a cross between tiny S. pusilla and white-flowered S. eumorpha.

Use the pink slipper as one parent, a large white-margined pink hybrid as the other. Or work for all-pink hybrids by using the pink slipper and a deep rose self from the large-faced hybrids. If you favor dotted types, try a pink slipper and a pink-dotted tigrina.

Commercial seed houses pay up to $400.00 an ounce for gloxinia seed. To command so good a price, your seed must be of top quality; in a wide range of colors; specialty seeds from unique crosses, or species seed. To interest firms in your merchandise, take 35 mm. slides of your gloxinias while they are flowering, include a slide with each inquiry, and do not expect it to be returned. These firms are too busy to attend to the remailing.
If you grow but a few thousand seeds you may want to sell them as I do: hybrid slipper seeds to individuals for $5.00 per hundred; to wholesale firms for $12.50 per thousand.

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in China, India, Japan, and England for rare plants. Her knowledge of greenhouse operation came the hard way, by experimentation. Today her greenhouse is stocked to the brim with virtually every kind of gesneriad. Her articles in plant publications whet readers’ appetites for the unusual things she sells over-the-counter and through the mail.

A business executive in New York set up a prefab greenhouse with no thought of operating it for profit. The house and potting shed cost approximately $3,000.00, although he saved $1,800.00 by erecting it himself and doing his own mason work. An achimenes authority, he soon found he had an over-supply which collector friends wanted. Currently he has a self-sustaining hobby which will bring in sizable dividends when he has more time for it. He has made a cross between a species sinningia and a rechsteineria, the tubers of which he sells for $20.00 each.

A young man in Oklahoma paid a substantial part of his college tuition with the proceeds of gesneriad sales from cuttings, tubers, and seeds sent through the mails. His less than 10-foot-square greenhouse is too small to accommodate specimen plants, but he can grow quantities of gesneriads in flats and hanging baskets. From these he harvests the material he sells.

One Sale Paid for My Greenhouse
At a national African violet convention a commercial dealer heard me talking about a white-flowered Episcia dianthiflora. Later he wrote, “If there is such a plant, we might be interested in buying propagation stock.” The upshot was that I sold enough of these plants to pay for my greenhouse.

Formerly, I used to send out a listing of many kinds of African violets, gloxinias, and other gesneriads. Then I tried advertising,  running my  ads  simultaneously  with  pertinent magazine articles. Results were good. After you have once advertised with the larger magazines, you receive monthly letters announcing future articles which usually feature photographs of the plants discussed. I found it paid to tie in ads with the issues that carried stories about the plants I was selling.

Currently I grow my gesneriads for commercial firms, selling tubers and seeds rather than plants. These are easily shipped, and I use the top cuttings of my rare gesneriads to propagate more material.

Geraniums (Pelargoniums)
Wherever you are located, you can be sure of an active demand for the geraniums (Pelargonium). You will sell bright-flowered singles and doubles as spring bedders, for foundation or patio plantings, for window boxes or planters. Zonals and Martha Wellingtons are specialties for Memorial Day, and the trailing ivies for poolside plantings and hanging baskets. The dwarf, cactus, fancy- and scented-leaved varieties are year-round sellers to collectors. The “unusual and fine-flowered” sorts (such a wide classification!) also appeal to collectors— both advanced and amateur. Since geraniums ship well, selling them to collectors alone can provide a year-round business if you wish to specialize.

Pelargonium Types
The species, seldom available from local florists or plant counters, are a first-rate specialty for collectors or hybridizers who want to cross species and hybrids. And where can you find these buyers? Join the International Geranium Society (address, page 257) and obtain leads on collectors from other Society members; or advertise in the Society’s publication. Advertise in a national gardening magazine or run an ad in a
local paper. You may find many collectors right in your own area who have previously had to “send away” for additions to their collections.

Tuberous-Rooted Pelargoniums
Tuberous-rooted pelargoniums are interesting but may have limited sales to only the more advanced collectors. However, if you intend to specialize, it will pay you to grow a few pots of them so as to have a well-rounded list to offer. These include some species with unusual coloring. Pelargonium gibbosum has nearly black-red flowers with chartreuse margins; P. frutaceum has petals spotted with yellow.

The Fragrant Ones
The scented-leaved sorts with odors suggestive of fruit, spice, or various perfumes appeal to everybody. Place a pot of the old favorite, rose-scented Pelargonium graveolens to the front of a counter, and as you talk with a customer invite him to press the leaves with his fingers to get a whiff of the delightful fragrance. Very likely he will want to buy the plant. Other favorite scenteds include the lemon P. crispum, peppermint P. tomento-sium, coconut P. grossularioides, nutmeg P. fragrans, apple P. odoratissimum, and apricot P. Ninon. The pungence of pine is given off by the leaves of P. denticulatum.
Martha Washington Pelargoniums
Growers on the West Coast sell the pansy-flowered Martha Washingtons (Pelargonium domesticum) to home gardeners. Almost every yard flaunts these gorgeous beauties. In other sections, they are sold only as spring gift plants or as

Decoration Day specials.
Because they are not so easily grown as their relatives, the zonals, you may find it wise to buy rooted cuttings and grow them on in a cool greenhouse. You can get assorted labeled varieties in red, pink, purple, and white for about $10.00 per hundred. Plant these directly into 3- or 4-inch pots. Water freely and keep at a temperature around 55 degrees.

Good sellers are Empress of Russia, Jungle Night, Carmine Queen, Misty Rose, Stardust, San Diego, Mrs. Mary Bard, Ballerina, Azalea, Mary Elizabeth, and Senorita.

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Slender-stemmed varieties, ideal for baskets, include the rose-pink Mrs. H. J. Jones, silvery pink, The Blush, and white-and-rose Enchantress.
Rapid growing trailers, perfect to drape walls, are the pink Galilee, light purple Diener’s Lavender, and scarlet Intensity.

Zonal Geraniums
The zonal geranium is perhaps the most popular plant for Memorial Day sales, but it goes well at any time.
Fancy-Leaved Geraniums
The fancy-leaved geraniums are prized by collectors and find favor, too, with the gardener who wants a “different” pot or bedding plant. Although the leaf colors are varied, they do not clash when planted together. Grow them in strong sunshine to bring out their full beauty.

One profit-gardener makes a specialty of these. She grows masses of them outside on a sunny slope and sells cuttings directly from the bed.
Popular among the fancy types are Happy Thought, Marshall MacMahon, Bronze Beauty, Skies of Italy, and Mrs. Pollock. Beckwith Pride, Hills of Snow, and Attraction are among the silver- and green-leaved; Gold Leaf, Verona, Cloth of Gold, and tiny Dwarf Gold Leaf have gold leaves.

Unusual and Fine-Flowering Types
These fascinating varieties have sales appeal for the collector as well as those who want unusual house or garden plants. In this group are the Bird’s Egg pelargoniums with the lower petals of the flower touched and splashed with darker color. There are few of these listed by dealers. If you can secure plants to propagate, you will be assured of a stock item with exceptional sales value.
Less rare but popular is the notched-petal group listed as Jeanne, Carnation, or Sweet William. These flowers have “pinked” petals—like a carnation.

The Rosebud geraniums have very double flowers like tiny partially opened rosebuds. Favorite varieties are Apple Blossom, Magenta, and Scarlet Rosebud, whose flowers open wider than the others.

Then there is the Poinsettia group with narrow, uneven petals of varying size. Red Poinsettia has short petals of lavender pink. The pure white one, Noel, may be listed under Cactus-flowered.

Another group is called Phlox because its eyed-florets resemble the garden phlox. Both Phlox and its variety, New Phlox, are popular.

Hints on Culture
The geranium (Pelargonium) grows in any ordinary soil, provided it is not deficient in potash, and in a minimum temperature of 55 to 60 degrees with full sunlight. Contrary to popular belief, plants require constant watering. Keeping them on the dry side delays flowering. Good growth and heavy flowering depend on steady fertilizing. Give weekly doses of half strength fertilizer as the buds form.

Pythium, commonly called black leg disease, is a form of rot. To prevent it, sterilize the soil before planting and spray with 2-2-50 Bordeaux to keep older plants free of this infection. One commercial geranium saved an entire collection by repeated dosages of the tar derivative, Carco-X. Another effective fungicide is Orthocide.
Propagation

Propagate geraniums by seed or cuttings. Sow the seeds in a loose soil, spacing them about 2 inches apart. Cover lightly with soil and set in a warm greenhouse. As the seedlings grow, prick them off into 2- and finally 4-inch pots. Seeds sown in August produce spring-flowering plants.

Geraniums respond well to hand pollination; the slender seed pods ripen in about 6 weeks. Do not depend on these homemade hybrids for your first saleable crop, however. Seeds sold by specialists are gathered from selected varieties and will give you just the type of plant you want to sell.

Cuttings strike root easily when taken in September. Insert them in a flat of moist vermiculite, spacing them so that leaves do not touch. They will be ready for sale within 4 months. These plants need not be shifted from small to large pots; instead pot them directly into 2- and 3-inchers.

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Sales of un rooted leaves from just one or two plants of newer varieties may bring you enough cash to pay for greenhouse necessities fertilizer, insecticides, etc.

Rooted Leaves
Given good conditions, African violet leaves root in a month to 6 weeks and they sell for about a third more than un-rooted kinds. Growers who sell rooted leaves can remove them and sell them direct from flats. If you want to pot them in small thumb pots you can add another 15 cents to the price.

Small Potted Plants
If you aim to sell potted plants, put them into thumb pots as soon as the plantlets are about an inch high. Should several small plants appear at the base you can separate them for this first potting or let them grow until shifted to a 2-inch pot. Weekly feedings of M strength fertilizer will hasten growth.

Selling Small Plants
You may be able to dispose of small named plants even when not in  plant counters. Or you may have a friend in some type of retail business who might want to handle a few plants on a commission basis. Small dress shops, variety stores, dry cleaning shops all are possibilities.
Then too, you might offer your violets in dozen or more lots to other greenhouse growers. Many of the larger greenhouses do not grow their own African violets and are delighted to purchase well-grown stock at a price low enough to give them a fair mark-up.
Small plants are easily shipped in paper pots or by removing them from their original pot and wrapping the root ball in foil. The plant is then placed in a cellophane or plastic bag and wrapped lightly with newspaper. Thus packaged, it will reach its destination in a safe and sound condition, barring long exposure to severe cold weather, of course.

How to Scoop the Market
Most African violet hobbyists have every available inch of window space and under-fluorescent-light space crammed with plants. These are the collectors who prefer buying small started plants or leaf cuttings and growing them to specimen plants.
A good way to get a scoop on the newest in African violets is to attend the national conventions..
At these conventions, which are held in a different city each year, you will find commercial dealers set up and ready to give you all kinds of information as well as sell you the newest varieties. Usually they have plants in 2- or 3-inch pots and most of them take orders for varieties in short supply. However, you can bring home from a convention some of the very newest kinds. Assuming that you cater to the collectors in your area, you will find it advantageous to insert an ad in your local paper informing your customers that you are off on a buying trip to obtain for them the most exciting new African violets.
Buying securities is somewhat like buying an automobile. The decision to buy something is relatively easy. What, specifically, to buy is an altogether different problem. Before you drive your new car home, you have to choose a certain make, a certain model, certain upholstery, a certain color scheme. You decide between six cylinders and eight, between regular shift and automatic transmission, and say yes or no to white walls, radio, heater, and a dozen other optional extras.
So with securities. Although there are only two major categories bonds and stocks to select from, the variations and refinements and optional extras are as numerous as they are confusing.

For many investors, one factor may be sufficient reason to determine a choice. The man of modest means will very likely find corporate bonds at $1,000 apiece too steep and their 3 per cent interest payment too small for what he is trying to achieve. A wealthier investor might be fascinated by the potential in common stock but find that he would obtain a greater yield from tax-exempt municipals. All investors, however, will do well to become familiar with the various kinds of securities represented in corporate capital structures in order to understand their effect on each other and their bearing on the choice he eventually makes for himself.

The corporation is an entity marvellously adapted to the requirements of all parties involved. It developed in response

to the needs of the business community for funds over and beyond its own resources to enable it to build, expand, and grow.

The basic, one-celled form of business life is the individual entrepreneur the store owner who merchandises goods, the artisan supplying services, the small manufacturer whose capital needs are met out of savings or through a modest bank loan.

Somewhat more complex is the partnership, the pooling of the resources of several individuals to share in a joint venture. Presumably the credit of the group is somewhat stronger than that of the individual. The partners also assume responsibility for management of their company, participate in all profits accruing, and are legally liable for all debts outstanding.

As long as firms remain relatively small, either type of organization is adequate. As opportunities for expansion present themselves, however, when new plant and equipment are required, when greater amounts of raw materials must be stockpiled, and branch offices and distributors underwritten, and personnel increased, the individual and the partners are hard pressed. Their surplus generally is too small, their normal lines of credit too limited to do the job.

Enlargement of the partnership is no answer. Outside investors willing to take on the mutual responsibilities of partnership, or to immobilize their funds in a partnership agreement, are hard to come by. In any event, the range of financial needs at this stage usually is so great that only by increasing the partnership to ridiculous proportions could they be met.
The solution? A public stock corporation. Ownership thereby is spread among as many hundreds or thousands of people as are willing to buy in, their proportional part of the firm being represented by the amount of stock or number of shares they hold. Their reward is likewise a proportional share of their firm’s profits. Their control is exercised through the board of directors they elect. And because their stock is a standardized, known quantity and because there are stock exchanges they can readily withdraw from the company and sell their piece of ownership to someone else.
The corporation, once established and in being, is an impersonal thing of indeterminate duration. Directors and officers may come and go, investors may buy in and sell out, but the corporation has a momentum and life force which may enable it to run on indefinitely.

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Flowers vary from bright red to red-and-yellow, rich maroon, a real “shocking” pink, and cream with a blue margin. Foliage may be green, green margined with red, brown interlaced with green or vice versa. Culture is the same as for achimenes.

The variety most commonly grown is K. eriantha. This can be a tall plant which needs staking, or it can be handled as a trailer. Smaller-flowered K. amabilis has as pleasing flowers as can be found on any pot plant. Of the brightest pink, they have maroon dots on the throat. Single flowers are long-lived, often remaining on the plant 3 or 4 weeks. The pale green leaves are threaded with rich brown. This one would be an instant hit in any plant counter or at any florist shop. K. Lindeniana has brown-and-green leaves and cream-and-blue flowers. This too is of easy culture and unusual enough to be a most profitable item. Cecilia is another charming variety.

Hybridizing possibilities are good, as there is a wide range of colors, foliage forms, and heights.
While most kohlerias set seed rather easily, their pollen supply is short especially on K. amabilis and K. Lindeniana. Select a sunny day for pollination, obtaining pollen from a newly opened or 1-day-old flower, and place it on the stigma of a flower that has been open about a week. Seeds ripen in some 6 weeks. While a number of growers include Kohleria seed with mixed gesneriad seed, I know of no one offering seed from the special varieties. Labeled specifically, such seeds would certainly prove good sellers.

Rechsteineria
Here is a pot plant with an excellent future it will pay you to make its acquaintance. Some specialty houses still list but one rechsteineria, and that under the name of Gesneria cardi-nalis, macrantha, or umbellata. (Taxonomists now include Gesneria and Corytholoma with Rechsteineria.) I have six species of these plants. By ordering seed from several specialty houses, you can obtain a good collection for your own sales list.
This tuberous-rooted gesneriad from Brazil has unusually varied flower forms, but the color range is not great, from pale pink through salmon and yellow to vivid red. The plants are of easiest culture, some varieties blooming several times a year. Of even greater “dollar importance” to me is the fact that these plants will interbreed with some of the sinningias to produce glamorous bigeneric hybrids.

Tubers of rechsteinerias are firm; those of R. cardinalis resembling a sweet potato, the others being more like gloxinia tubers; R. cardinalis has heart-shaped, emerald green, hairy leaves and brilliant red flowers of unusual form.
Rechsteineria cyclophylla bears an umbel of bright red 5-petaled flowers. It flowers several times a year, sometimes sending up flower scapes with no leaves. My older specimen plants are never given much rest, while those intended for sale are dried off shortly after they finish flowering.
A 2-year-old tuber can be depended upon to produce hundreds of flowers at blooming time, and the flowers, having good substance, make exciting and unusual corsages.

The helmetlike flowers of R. Warszewiczi have lovely salmon-to-lemon coloring, and plants grow to 2 feet. Most of us who hybridize gloxinias would like to work this luscious near-cantaloupe hue into a gloxinia strain. Tubers are the easiest of all gesneriad tubers to store. They can be left in the pots, watered slightly, or left dry; or they can be removed and stored in sand or vermiculite.

A variety of the red-flowered R. purpurea grows in a fascinating way. The glossy, sharply serrated leaves develop in whorls of three, then six. Topping the 18-inch plant are two umbels of rose-splashed tubular flowers, usually about 150 of them at a time. My seed sales from this variety are excellent. But I haven’t exploited the plant since I want to use it in my own hybridization. I know of no seed or bulb house selling these tubers, but that is no drawback since it is easily grown from seed.

Rechsteineria leucotricha or Brazilian edelweiss, has leaves covered with downy silver hair, and light red flowers. The tubers are round and of light orange color in their young state, but as they age they become darker and somewhat gnarled. This species, like R. cyclophylla, will send up flower scapes in advance of the heavy foliage often without benefit of pot or potting soil. It is easily grown from seed but a bit difficult from cuttings. One firm sells mature plants for as much as $20.00 apiece.

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Since I grow my episcias almost exclusively for seeds, I plant rooted cuttings of several varieties in each wooden flat of peatmoss, sand, leafmold, and light loam. The bottom of the flat is first covered with clay pot chips and charcoal pieces. All varieties except the blue-flowered ones are placed where they receive 1500 foot-candles of light at 12:30 P.M. on a bright summer day. They are always kept well moistened and—note well—they require more water than African violets. In this bright spot, they produce maximum bloom. After pollination, the seed capsules form; they resemble bunches of small grapes. The red and lavenders are most congenial, hybridizing easily one with another. Here are some of my favorites—all easy to propagate, all generous with seeds:

Episcia acajou; Chocolate Soldier; E. cupreata, which doesn’t take full sun, but without some sun will fail to flower, the variety, viridifolia, which must have a blaze of light to bring out foliage and flower color; Silver Sheen; lilacina; and the long¬time favorite reptans (fulgida) — (which most people think of as the “red violet”).
Episcia dianthiflora and E. punctata are of easy culture but they have one point of difference from other episcias, it takes 5 to 9 months for seeds to ripen, whereas the usual ripening period is 6 weeks.

Greatly prized among collectors is the reptans variety Lady Lou, a variegated pink-green and brown-leaved form. Most people find it more difficult than the parent plant, and it often reverts back to the brown and green leaf coloration of E. reptans. The brown-leaved, pink-flowered Pinkishia, fairly new, is easy to propagate. Tropical Topaz should prove as easy as the plants it resembles—E. viridifolia, but I have found it somewhat difficult (though it may be that I do not have the true one). My plant came directly from Panama, as did the one bearing the species name. If it does prove easy, it will make a hit with window and greenhouse gardeners.

Episcias are best propagated through stolons or seeds; leaf cuttings take too long to produce sizable plants. Plant the stolons directly into pots or flats of light soil—or any good growing media. You can sell them from 2- or 3-inch pots—several in a pot or hanging basket—or as cuttings.

If you propagate through seed, you will get a variety of colors and forms from a mixed package. I have reports from customers of several pink-flowered sorts springing up among seedlings grown from my seed mix. And foliage is as varied as that of coleus. These plants are a hybridizer’s dream, and flowers come in white, pink, lavender, red, and yellow.

In the episcia blossom, pollen ripens several days before the pistil is ready to receive it. When the pistil elongates and shows beyond the petal edge, pollination time is at hand. Choose pollen from a one- or two-day flower, and apply it to the pistil with a brush or your finger tip. You may have to pollinate on two successive days to assure success.

The rounded seed capsule ripens in 6 weeks. Each seed has attached to it a tiny blob of albumen which sustains the embryo.

Seeds are larger than those of African violets but require approximately the same care and seedlings flower in about the same time.

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Achimenes
Achimenes, sometimes called nut orchids or Japanese pan-sies, grow from rhizomes shaped and constructed like small pine cones. The plants are easy to grow, unusual enough to make good sellers, and sure-fire material for hybridizers. In warmer sections, they can be planted directly in the shaded outdoor garden or rock garden. I have liked them in a window or patio box and for hanging baskets in lath house or greenhouse.

The demand for achimenes is good; the supply is short. Culture is the same as for gloxinias except that they can be planted four rhizomes to a 4-inch pot, five to a 5-inch pot, etc. Some of the plants grow upright; others (usually depending on the amount of light) trail over the pot edge. This makes them ideal for hanging baskets. Achimenes, like gloxinias, need a rest after flowering. Store them in their pots at 55 degrees F., or depot them and store in sacks of vermiculite.

Flowers of achimenes are similar to petunias, with upturned faces in colors from white through pink, red, blue, and purple. Collectors’ favorites include the red-flowered Master Ingram; Mauve Queen with red dots on a golden throat; white Margarita; bright red A. coccinea with ferny leaves; and purple Wetterlow’s Triumph. The best known variety is Purple King.

Propagate achimenes through the rhizomes (which multiply each season), by rhizome divisions (each scale acts as a seed), or through seed.
Trichosporum

Bright red tubular flowers from leathery vaselike calyxes, waxy oval leaves and a graceful vinelike growth distinguish aeschynanthus (trichosporum). These make excellent pot or hanging basket plants. They can be grown in any soil suitable for gloxinias or African violets, in any of the mixtures, as peatmoss, sphagnum moss, and chicken grits or equal parts of osmunda fiber or shredded bark and peatmoss, and in the same temperature recommended for African violets. Culture is easy.
Aeschynanthus lohbianus has dark green leaves and scarlet flowers spilling from purple-brown calyxes; A. marmoratus is characterized by variegated light and dark green leaves, maroon beneath. The flower, less showy than that of A. lobbianus,
Is reddish orange. A vigorous species with long waxy green leaves and bright orange flowers is A. speciosus. Propagate these plants through cuttings or seed.

Columnea

Columneas are handsome trailers. One grower who specializes in orchids and columneas considers his older columnea plants covered with flowers more spectacular than many of the orchids. Species include the yellow-flowered C. tulae var. flava, the red-flowered C. Alleni, C. Banksi with shiny leaves, and C. gloriosa with small, hairy, near-brown leaves.
Grow these trailers in soil or “substance” as suggested for aeschynanthus. They are warm-house plants responding to the same light conditions as African violets. Propagation is through cuttings or seeds.

Columneas are collectors’ items for you to grow only in the warm greenhouse. C. tulae however makes an interesting house plant, and being a yellow-flowered gesneriad, it is popular with African violet and gloxinia fanciers.
Cuttings of these plants ship well and most collectors will purchase rooted or unrooted ones. A single, well-grown, 2-year-old plant will produce a dozen or more cuttings which sell generally for about 35 cents apiece unrooted, 50 cents rooted.

Episcia
While this is a gesneriad, and so related to the Saintpaulia, it is not a “red violet.” But the common name of Flame Violet may stimulate sales. We can use it and still be ethical only by including the proper identifying word, Episcia, in all advertising and promotion.

I know of no company that purchases episcia seeds by the ounce. I sell seeds in mixtures at $5.00 per thousand. One company buys about 20,000 a year, two others each 5,000. This amount of seed is taken from plants in two flats each measuring 14 by 27 inches.

The wooden flats hold the episcias for 2 years. Then I dump them out (in the fall), trim out dead pieces, and replant in fresh soil. By this time they have multiplied enough to fill 6 flats of the same size.

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• Grow Your Own Miniature Garden

• Related Blogs on Pots
• Attractive Settings for Container Plants
• The Evolution of Pots and Pans

Is the Gloxinia Business for You?
Many amateur and professional growers have found gloxinias profitable. Some specialize in seeds, some in tubers. Others carry the plants through the season, selling thousands at Easter and on Mother’s Day. Huge plants, grown for these special occasions, retail for about $25.00 apiece.

Gloxinias also attract collectors. If you sell by mail, you can interest them through a little two- or three-dollar ad in a specialized publication, such as The Gloxinian or The African Violet Magazine. Keep up with things through the American Gloxinia Society, and its magazine. Membership is $2.50 per year. Address: Edith McDonald, Secretary, 310 East 71st St., New York 21, New York.

From My Greenhouse
When I first began selling, I vended small potted gloxinias, in bud only, in 3-inch pots to local plant counters. Today I sell only species tubers and those from my crosses between species and large-flowered hybrids, most of them directly to a commercial seed house which also orders gloxinia seed. The species seem most popular, followed closely by the hybrid slippers.

You will find that standard varieties are always in demand. The older ones were hybridized in Europe and today commercial dealers here still obtain many of these varieties from foreign sources. Since European growers have low labor costs, they are able to sell below most American dealers.

You pay the wholesaler $7.50 to $35.00 per hundred tubers, depending on the tuber size. You can retail small ones for about 30 cents each; the giants will bring 75 cents to $1.25 each, depending on the market.

For Collectors
The newer hybrid forms appeal most to collectors. Flowers are wide-throated, open-faced, in a great array of colors. Although no yellow gloxinia has been developed, there are a number with yellow throats, and there is plenty of variety with which to stock your greenhouse. I know of only a few firms selling doubles, so if you discover any among your seedlings, it would pay you to reproduce them.
Popular with collectors are the species. These have downward-facing, slipper-type flowers and pouchlike corollas. Sinnin-gia speciosa, the blue slipper and its varieties, have fair sized slipper-type flowers in blue, purple, white, and rose, and plain green leaves. S. macrophylla, commonly called Brazilian gloxinia, has olive-green leaves red beneath and nodding purple flowers; regina is similar; S. eumorpha displays dangling white bells among shiny green leaves. Baby of them all is S. pusilla with leaves scarcely an inch long and tiny quarter-inch blue-purple flowers. The largest of the species, S. tubiflora, has pointed silvery-green leaves and fragrant white flowers resembling nicotiana.
Schedule for Tubers
If you are starting with tubers, plant them in February for June to July flowers and give a daytime temperature of 70 to 80 degrees with the usual 10-degree drop at night. Start tubers in any light soil, peatmoss, sphagnum moss, or vermiculite. As soon as they show growth, move to 4-inch pots. For maximum flowering, they require subsequent shifts to 5- or 6-inchers, depending on size of tuber.

Related Blogs

Related Blogs on Gloxinias

• Gardening Caring For Gloxinias
• Gardening Your Own Hybrid Gloxinias
• the In various Another Vine Begonia (Cobea
• Grow Your Own Miniature Garden
• Comedy

• Related Blogs on greenhouse
• Art as a Process
• Africa profits from greenhouse gas offset scheme

African Violets and Orchids
George Wissell of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, has a 10- by 10-foot affair, built for approximately $350.00. He grows only African violets and orchids. The orchids hang from the roof to obtain more light and to help shade the African violets. Two double-shelved benches are at the sides of the house. Fluorescent lights under the first bench adequately light the plants growing on the lower bench, which is about 6 inches above the floor.

In such small quarters, Mr. Wissell does an excellent job of hybridizing and growing. All the plants, except those kept for hybridizing, are sold to local stores or hobbyists. This constant profit promotes his hybridization in a big way.

Meeting Home-Town Needs
In Houston, Texas, Grace Grissom sells African violets from her 15- by 48-foot attached-to-the-dwelling greenhouse. A suspended gas heater keeps the temperature up during the winter months, while an evaporative cooler holds it down during the scorching summer. She attends conventions to procure the newest violets, which she propagates. She is now adding a sales room for potting accessories, materials for flower arranging, and other gardening equipment.

Sales Through Mail & The Internet
A friend in New York rears her African violets in a prefabricated 10- by 12-foot lean-to and sells through the mail, eliminating the “bother” of having people running to her greenhouse. Much of her trade comes through membership in round-robins (correspondence groups of various plant societies). She advertises her specialties in such publications as The African Violet Magazine, The Gloxinian and The Begonian, with an ad once or twice a year in one of the larger gardening journals. Her hobby pays off well in both cash and fun.

David Spinks from Boston has used the internet to set up a thriving gardening business. He followed others by making his first sales on Ebay. He built up a very large customer base using Ebay, by giving good customer service and building up
a good feedback score. David sells seeds and small plants in compost that can be packaged easily and posted.
 He has now branched out and runs several websites that sell not only plants but also
gardening  supplies.
African Violets from a Southern Greenhouse
In humid Louisiana, a hobbyist sells African violets from a 24- by 30-foot free-standing greenhouse erected by local builders. By keeping a heavy shading on the glass and several layers of cheesecloth inside the house, he is able to keep the house cool enough in summer. He raises thousands of violets and, while he sells some locally, his main business is wholesale.

If you want to make African violets your specialty, it will pay you to join The African Violet Society of America, Inc., P. O. Box 1326, Knoxville, Tennessee. This Society issues a well-illustrated magazine, and there are a number of other advantages to membership.