RUDA Streptocarpus Plant from Poland (Kleszczynski) -- IN BLOOM! 5-5

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Welcome to my Auction!

Streptocarpus 'Ruda' was introduced in Poland by Piotr Kleszczynski.

You are bidding on a young, BLOOMING plant that is fully established in a 2.5 inch pot. Plants shown in the photo(s) are the same cultivar as the plant for sale, but not the same individual plant. Please note that the plant you are bidding on is a BIG PLANT in a real pot and it is IN BLOOM. Streps must reach a good size (which varies according to the mature size of the cultivar) and become well established before they begin to bloom, so these are large plants. My plants are grown under strong light and good nutrition. These conditions produce a vigorous, healthy plant that will be most capable of adapting to your growing conditions and performing well for you. These plants are ready for immediate transplant into 4-inch pots. Please note that flower colors can vary according to light levels and temperatures. Under my bright lights, reds and blues often become darker and more purplish.

Streptocarpus are indoor plants that are easy to grow on windowsills or under lights. Their requirements are very similar to those of African Violets and they bloom throughout the year. They can be more continuous bloomers than African violets because a succession of several flowering stems rises from the base of each leaf over a long period of time, instead of only a single stem. Complete care instructions may be found toward the bottom of this listing. You can assume that the cultivars I offer will eventually produce plants of moderate size unless I say otherwise, eventually reaching about 12-18" diameter and 7-12" high. The leaves can be trimmed with a scissors to keep the plants smaller.

Streptocarpus can have very beautiful flowers but they also can have very undesirable growth and flowering habits. I have devised a rating system for these plant characteristics to help guide you with your selections. Although necessarily subjective and biased by my ideas about what strep plants should ideally look like, my rating system can help someone not acquainted with these plants to find cultivars that will look best in their collections. This rating system does not take into account anything about the flower itself, but does assess the way the flowers are held by the plant and how many flowers are likely to be present on the plant at a given time under good growing conditions. The ideal streptocarpus cultivar would yield a 9-9 score. The poorest possible score is 1-1. The rating appears just after the title in each of my listings, so you can quickly find the cultivars that score the highest. More information about this rating system appears toward the bottom of this listing.

Please contact me if you have any questions about this listing. Please check out my other listings! Your satisfaction is important to me. If you are not happy with your purchase(s), please email me immediately. I cannot guarantee that open flowers or flower buds will not be damaged in transit. They usually come through in good shape due to my packaging methods, which do not use bulky, environmentally unsound materials like styrofoam and fiberglass. I reserve the right to remove open flowers and trim the larger leaves as necessary to prevent crowding in the package, but I keep this to a minimum and I do not remove flower buds. I guarantee that the plants will be in good condition up to 48 hours after the first attempted delivery to the location specified on the package. All damage claims must be submitted during this time. The occasional broken leaf or flower stem is expected, and is not considered significant damage. My plants are grown in a licensed, state-inspected nursery. Shipment to U.S.A. destinations only (any location with a Zip Code and delivery by USPS). I block foreign bids and purchases but I can unblock international buyers if delivery is to a U.S.A. destination.

Thanks for looking!

Payment

You are expected to pay for the item or email me to make other arrangements within 15 days after you commit to buy the item. This gives you time to bid on listings that may appear in the two weeks following your initial win, allowing you to save on shipping charges. I expect you to use this time to accumulate purchases, unless you want shipment sooner. It is best to avoid paying on Sunday because this makes it more difficult for you to include any second-chance offers I may send you on Sunday night. Remember, please wait until you are through shopping before paying in order to receive the correct combined shipping charges on your purchases when you check out and to keep me from shipping you a box before you want me to. Your combined shipping charges will be calculated correctly by eBay only if you pay for all of the items together on one invoice, which will be generated automatically for you in eBay's checkout process (there is no need to ask me for an invoice if you are paying for everything that you want in the box). If you want to combine paid and unpaid items in the same box, you must ask me for an invoice for the unpaid items before paying, or you will pay too much for shipping.

Combined Shipping Charges

All plants from David Thompson’s Plants on eBay are shipped from Iowa by USPS Priority Mail, which gets the package to you quite reliably in 2 or 3 days. However, USPS does not provide any guarantee about this and on rare occasions there can be delays. If USPS can get the package to you in 2 or 3 days without using a FedEx aircraft, they will use a truck (Iowa and adjacent states) and the rates are quite cheap but the plants have more risk of exposure to extreme temperatures in transit.

Priority Mail charges depend upon the weight of the package and the distance the package travels. Below is an example of shipping charges to some major cities. Note that, for example, an order of 3 plants costs the same to ship as an order of 5 plants. This is because the plants weigh only 6 oz each and USPS Priority Mail shipping rates increase only as each incremental pound of weight is exceeded (1 lb = 16 oz).

TABLE 1. COMBINED SHIPPING CHARGES FOR ALL STREPTOCARPUS AND ALL OTHER PLANTS IN 2.5 INCH POTS. The left column shows increasing numbers of purchased plants. The list below goes up to 24 plants as an example, but more plants can be combined as well, at approximately the same cost per plant. There is no limit to the number of plants that can be combined.

Select your location (or a location a similar distance from Iowa) and the number of plants you want to buy to estimate your USPS Priority Mail combined shipping charges. If the shipping cost shown in the eBay listing is intermediate between the costs given here for 1-2 plants, your rates are intermediate between two of the columns in this table.

A: Chicago, St. Louis

B: Atlanta, Denver, Houston, New Orleans, New York, Philadelphia

C: Boston, Las Vegas, Miami, Phoenix

D: Los Angeles, Seattle

E: Anchorage, Honolulu, Saipan

......................CITY NEAREST YOU (ABCDE; as specified above)

PLANTS.........A..............B...............C..................D....................E

1-2………….$9.60……..$10.75……….$11.60…………$12.45……….$13.45

3-5…………$11.70….….$14.50………$15.45.….……..$16.40……….$18.05

6-8………….$12.15……..$15.55……..$17.80………..$20.05…………$23.10

9-10………..$13.10…….$16.95……..$20.50…………$24.05…………$26.90

11-13……….$13.95.……$18.10………$22.95………..$27.75…………$31.15

14-16……….$14.35.……$19.20……..$25.25………..$31.25…………$35.30

17-18……….$14.85……$20.30……..$27.60………..$34.85…………$39.55

19-21……….$15.35……$21.35……..$29.95………..$38.55…………$43.95

22-24…….…$15.75.……$22.45……..$32.20………..$41.95…………$47.85

Streptocarpus information

Streptocarpus are easy to grow, have continuous flowering habits, and present unique color combinations, so most African violet growers eventually include some of them in their collections. They need growing conditions that are very similar to those of African Violets, but there are a few differences.

Light: Streptocarpus need bright light to flower well. They grow exceptionally well in sunny windows as long as the sun doesn’t get too hot--a sheer curtain will diffuse the light. If all of the leaves are rather yellowish and the flowers are bleached, the plants are getting too much light, or they have a problem with the roots or nutrition. Insufficient light will result in large thin, dark green leaves and few flowers. If you grow the plants under fluorescent tubes, use a T-8 fixture with four tubes, placed just above the plants.

Temperatures: Streptocarpus can tolerate much cooler conditions than those tolerated by African violets, as long as they don't freeze. However, they do not grow or flower well when grown cool. They grow and flower best at room temperature. Like African violets, they suffer when temperatures exceed 80ºF.

Watering and fertilizer: It is best to fertilize with a commercial, general-purpose, water-soluble fertilizer at the rate of 1/8 teaspoon per gallon every time you water. The brand is not important, as long as it dissolves easily. Avoid “bloom booster” fertilizers. Use rainwater or reverse-osmosis water if possible, to avoid the buildup of salts in the potting mix. Unlike African violets, overhead watering with cold water does not bother the leaves, as long as the plant will not be in direct sun before it dries off. I do not recommend wick-watering or using self-watering pots for any plant, especially streptocarpus. They must dry out almost completely between waterings to grow their best. If you have a large number of plants, grow plants of similar size--with similar size pots--on a tray together. All of them should dry out at about the same rate. That way, you can water the tray, instead of the individual pots. Do not leave plants standing in water that they cannot absorb within an hour.

Potting: The plant you receive from David Thompson's Plants on eBay should be transplanted into a 4-inch pot only after at least 2 weeks, to allow it to adjust to your conditions. Be sure to do this because streptocarpus can never reach their full potential in a smaller pot. Avoid exceeding a 4-inch pot, even for a large show plant. Use plastic "azalea" pots (about equal height and width) with ample drainage holes. Keep the growing points of the plant (crown) at the surface of the potting medium. Potting materials deteriorate within about nine months, causing the health of the plant to decline, so you need to re-pot periodically. A small plant can be re-potted to a larger pot--up to 4 inches. To re-pot a plant that is already in a 4-inch pot or larger, look for the youngest emerging leaves. Take a knife and cut behind these to release a 3-leaf front lead from the plant. Shorten the longest roots and remove all of the potting material. Remove even the smallest flower buds and trim the leaves to 3” long. Plant the 3-leaf lead in the smallest pot you can get it into, remembering to keep the growing point near the surface--you may need to tie the leaves to a stake for stability if there are only a few stubby roots on the lead division. The potting medium should be moist, not wet, and the plant should not wobble. Put a plastic bag over the plant and secure inside a second pot placed below the plant (or place several plants together in a rigid, clear-plastic container). Wait until you see root action and/or leaf growth before removing the plant from the humid environment (about three weeks). Place the covered plants in moderate light (no sunlight, as it will overheat them), and expect the plants to wilt and look poor while they are rooting. Use a commercial peat-perlite mix (may contain some bark, but not soil) that has ample perlite (you will likely need to add some perlite). Alter a commercial mix, instead of mixing your own, to reduce the chance of nutrient deficiencies and pH problems.

Grooming: Leaves may be made shorter or narrower at any time with a scissors. Just trim them so the plant has nice shape. This is good for the plant, for it causes it to produce additional leaves, which will result in additional flowers. A plant with many shorter leaves will likely bloom more profusely than a plant with a few long leaves, even if they have the same leaf area. Large plants will have many old leaves that are no longer producing flowering stems--such leaves should be removed. This causes the plant to produce more young leaves, and thus more flowers. Spent flower stems should be removed with a scissors near their base.

Pests and diseases: Streptocarpus are prone to root rot if kept moist or wet, especially if they are planted in pots that are too large (see above), recently repotted, in an inappropriate potting mix, or in potting mix that is more than a few months old. Let them dry out completely between waterings to keep the roots healthy and make the potting mix last as long as possible. Thrips, aphids, cyclamen mites and both soil and foliar mealybugs can bother streps and can be controlled with various insecticides or miticides. Virus is present in most older cultivars and new cultivars will become extinct very quickly if they are not resistant. Plants from seed will generally be free of virus, but Streptocarpus are complex hybrids and rarely produce seedlings with floral quality equal to the better Streptocarpus clones available today. Older cultivars are definitely resistant if they are still available in the marketplace. Virus symptoms mostly include leaf mottling, especially at or near the leaf tips. These symptoms are most commonly seen on young plants, plants grown under poor growing conditions, or plants that have been repotted or otherwise stressed. The symptoms often nearly disappear on established older plants grown under good conditions. Resistant cultivars (virtually all older cultivars) will grow and bloom just as well with the virus as without it. By bidding on my Streptocarpus listings, you accept that any of the plants you receive may be infected with one or more viruses. Plant viruses can go into a “latent phase” where they become inactive yet still remain in the plant. Because of this, using a test kit to identify plants that are free of virus is not advisable; false negative results are common, rendering these kits useless except to document the presence of virus.

STREPTOCARPUS RATING SYSTEM USED BY DAVID THOMPSON'S PLANTS ON EBAY:

Streptocarpus can have very beautiful flowers but they also can have very undesirable growth and flowering habits. I have devised a rating system for these plant characteristics to help guide you with your selections. Although necessarily subjective and biased by my ideas about what strep plants should ideally look like, my rating system can help someone not acquainted with these plants to find cultivars that will look best in their collections. This rating system does not take into account anything about the flower itself, but does assess the way the flowers are held by the plant and how many flowers are likely to be present on the plant at a given time under good growing conditions. The ideal streptocarpus cultivar would yield a 9-9 score. The poorest possible score is 1-1. The rating appears just after the title in each of my listings, so you can quickly find the cultivars that score the highest.

The first number of the score reflects the ability of the cultivar to have multiple flowers open at the same time, Note that it does not matter how many flowers are on a stem. A cultivar that has only 1 or 2 buds or flowers per stem can outperform a cultivar with more buds or flowers per stem. This first number thus tells us how likely we are to see a plant of this cultivar that looks like it is in "full bloom." For a score of 1, we are most likely to see only 1 stem with 1 or 2 flowers on the plant at a time, with few other bloom stems visible. For a score of 9, we would expect to see a lot of flowers open at one time and a lot of bloom stems in all stages of development on a mature plant. Here we are talking about plants that are growing in a good but ordinary household setting with adequate care, not "show" plants grown with special methods and with special conditions to enhance their performance.

The second number of the score reflects the ability of the plant to look compact and tidy. The size of the plant does not matter, but the overall appearance of the plant does. A cultivar with a low score might have excessively tall or short flower stalks, or it might have flower stalks that are too weak to hold up the flowers, or it might have leaves that rise straight up and interfere with the flowers, or it might have only a few gigantic leaves that seem to detract from the floral presentation. A cultivar with a high score should have leaves that are neatly arranged below the flowers and have flowers that are held with strong stems of an appropriate length.

Terms

By bidding on or purchasing this item, you accept the fact that I use unmarked, uninsulated boxes and you acknowledge that you are responsible to promptly find or claim the package and care for these perishable plants. Ebay requires me to ship within my stated 5-business-day handling period, which starts with your payment. It is your responsibility to withhold payment for the order, within the 15 days allowed for payment, if the weather will not be good on your end, and to not bid or buy if the weather is likely to be unsafe there during this 15-day period. Most damage due to excessive heat or cold occurs in the final delivery vehicle, or after delivery to a mailbox or to a porch. This can be prevented by marking on the box “Hold at P.O. for addressee,” which I can do on request, or partly prevented by delivery to a climate-controlled area, as at a workplace or business address with indoor mail room. I can also, on request, mark the box “Deliver to door,” if this will help to prevent the plants from baking in the sun in a mailbox. USPS Delivery Confirmation is proof of delivery. I guarantee that the plants will be in good condition up to 48 hours after the first attempted delivery to the location specified on the package. Damage reported later than this will be considered your responsibility, as I cannot be responsible for your growing conditions and practices, or for your failure to find or claim the package and care for the plants. Buyers who receive adjustments resulting from their disregard of any of these considerations may be blocked from bidding or buying. I have the right to require photos and/or require that plants be returned, at the buyer’s expense, before any adjustment is made.

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