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One hundred and forty. I counted again last Sunday. That's not including the leaf cuttings in the propagation tray, which would put it over 200, but those aren't plants yet, they're possibilities, and I don't count possibilities. My husband does. He counts them out loud.
It started in 1991 with one plant from the grocery store, a purple one, the kind everybody's grandmother has on the windowsill. It bloomed, I was pleased, I bought another. Then I found out you could grow new ones from a single leaf. Then I found out there was a club. Then I found out about fluorescent light stands. Then the basement. You can see where this is going. This page is everything I've learned in eight years of not being able to stop, written down for the person who just bought their second plant and is standing at the edge of the same cliff. Come on in, the water's lukewarm.
Basic Care: The Short Version
African violets are not hard. They are particular. Give them what they want and they will bloom nearly all year long, which is the whole reason to grow them. What they want:
- Bright light but not direct hot sun. An east window, or fluorescent tubes.
- Lukewarm water, never cold, never on the leaves.
- Evenly moist soil, never soggy, never bone dry.
- A small pot. They bloom better a little cramped. The pot should be about one-third the width of the plant.
- Light, loose, airy potting mix. Not garden dirt. Not heavy bagged "potting soil."
- Feeding a little bit all the time rather than a lot once in a while.
- Warm rooms, 65-75°F, like people. If you're comfortable, so are they. No drafts.
Watering
More violets are killed by watering than by anything else, and it's always too much, never too little. Two ways I water:
From below. Set the pot in a saucer of lukewarm water and let it drink for 20 or 30 minutes, until the top of the soil looks dark and damp. Then pour off what's left. Do not let it sit in water. Water again when the top of the soil feels dry to the touch, which for me is about once a week.
Wick watering. This is how I do 140 plants without losing my mind. A piece of acrylic yarn (not cotton, it rots) goes up through the drainage hole and into the soil when you pot the plant, and the other end dangles into a reservoir underneath: a margarine tub with a hole in the lid, or a plastic shoebox under a row of pots. The plant pulls up exactly what it needs. I put a very dilute fertilizer in the reservoir water (one-quarter strength) so they're fed with every sip. You have to use a lighter, fluffier mix for wicking (more perlite) or it stays too wet.
Why lukewarm? Cold water on the leaves makes ugly pale rings and spots. Cold water on the roots shocks them. Room temperature is fine; I fill my jug the night before and let it sit, which also lets the chlorine go off.
Light (and the light stands)
A windowsill plant will do fine in an east or north window, turned a quarter turn every week so it doesn't lean. But if you want blooms, and you want them in February, you want fluorescent light.
My basement setup: four metal shelf units, each shelf with a two-tube 48-inch shop-light fixture hung on chains about 10 to 12 inches above the tops of the plants. I use one cool white tube and one warm white tube in each fixture, which is cheap and works just as well as the expensive "grow" tubes in my experience. The lights are on a timer for 12 to 14 hours a day (mine come on at 6 a.m. and go off at 8 p.m.). Plants need the dark hours too; don't leave them on around the clock. Replace the tubes about once a year even if they still light, because they get dimmer than you can see.
If the leaves are reaching up and the stems are long, they want more light. If the leaves are hugging the pot and the center is tight and pale, they're getting too much; raise the fixture.
Potting Mix
I mix my own in a big tub in the garage. Equal parts (by volume, I use an old coffee can):
- 1 part peat moss (or a peat-based seed starting mix)
- 1 part perlite
- 1 part coarse vermiculite
plus a small handful of horticultural charcoal per gallon to keep it sweet, and a tablespoon of ground limestone per gallon, because peat is acid and violets like it just slightly on the acid side, not sour. Moisten it before you use it; dry peat repels water. For wick-watered plants, I go 1 part peat to 2 parts perlite. Repot everything every six months to a year, back into the same size pot with fresh mix, trimming off a little of the old root ball. They don't want a bigger pot, they want fresh mix.
Feeding: a balanced houseplant fertilizer at one-quarter strength every time I water, or in the wick reservoir. Once a month I water with plain water to flush any salts out. If the leaves get crusty white at the edges or the pot rim, that's salt buildup; flush it.
Propagation from a Leaf, Step by Step
This is the part that gets you. One leaf, a few months, and you have a whole new plant, or four. It's magic. Here's how.
- Pick a leaf. A healthy, medium-aged leaf from the middle rows of the plant. Not the old outer ones, not the tiny new ones in the center. Snap it off cleanly at the base of the stem.
- Trim the stem. With a razor blade or a sharp knife, cut the leaf stem (the petiole) to about 1 to 1 1/2 inches long, on a slant. The slanted cut gives more surface for babies to form on.
- Plant it. Fill a small pot or a cell in a plastic tray with moistened mix (I use half perlite, half peat for cuttings). Poke a hole with a pencil, put the stem in about 1/2 to 3/4 inch deep at a slight angle, and firm it gently. The leaf blade should be just above the surface, not touching it. You can dip the cut end in rooting hormone first; I do, it's cheap, but people get babies without it.
- Label it. Right now. You will not remember. A plastic plant label or a strip of a margarine tub with the name and the date in pencil.
- Cover it. Set the pot in a clear plastic bag or a clear tray with a dome, or under an upside-down drinking glass. This keeps the humidity up while the leaf has no roots. Put it under the lights or in bright indirect light, not sun; sun will cook it in the bag.
- Wait. Roots in 3 to 4 weeks. Tiny leaves, the "babies," poke up from the soil at the base of the stem in about 6 to 10 weeks. Keep the mix barely moist, and open the bag now and then to let air in. If the mother leaf rots, throw it out and try another; it happens.
- Separate. When the babies have leaves about the size of a dime (3 to 5 months from planting), gently unpot the whole clump, tease the babies apart (they each have their own little roots), and pot each one in its own 2-inch pot. You'll usually get 2 to 5 plantlets from one leaf. The mother leaf can go back in and often makes a second batch.
- Grow on. Babies bloom in about 6 to 9 months from separation. From leaf to first flower is roughly a year. Which is why you should start now, and which is how you get to 140.
Many people root leaves in a little jar of water instead, with the leaf held up by a piece of foil over the top. It works, but I find the roots that form in water are weaker when they hit soil. Try both.
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Common Problems
| What you see | What it is and what to do |
| Crown rot: the center of the plant goes soft, brown, mushy; outer leaves droop even though the soil's wet | Too much water, cold water, a heavy mix, or water sitting in the crown. Usually fatal, sadly. If you catch it early, cut away every soft bit down to clean tissue, dust with sulfur or a fungicide, let it dry out for a day and repot in fresh dry mix. Take a couple of healthy leaves as insurance before you try. Prevent it by never overwatering and never letting the plant sit in water. |
| Mealybugs: little white cottony tufts in the leaf axils and the crown; sticky leaves | The bane of my existence. Isolate the plant AT ONCE, away from the others. Touch each bug with a cotton swab dipped in rubbing alcohol; it dissolves them. Check every few days for weeks; they hide. If the whole plant is covered, or you find them in the soil (soil mealybugs are grayish and live on the roots), it's kinder to take clean leaves for cuttings and throw the plant and the pot away. I lost eleven plants to mealybugs in 1996 because I didn't isolate a new one. Quarantine every new plant for a month. I mean it. |
| Powdery mildew: white dusty patches on leaves and flowers | Stale air and cool damp nights. More air circulation (a small fan in the room, not blowing on them), pick off the worst leaves, a light dusting of sulfur. |
| No blooms | Not enough light, nine times out of ten. Or the pot is too big, or you're not feeding, or it's a plant that just bloomed itself out and needs a rest. Or it's a baby and it isn't time yet. Patience. |
| Long bare neck below the leaves | Normal as a plant ages and loses lower leaves. Repot deeper, so the neck is buried in fresh mix; it'll root along the neck. Or cut the whole crown off with an inch of neck and root it like a giant cutting. |
| Pale rings and spots on leaves | Cold water got on the leaves. Cosmetic. Won't go away, but won't spread. Warm water next time. |
| Tight, hard, hairy, distorted center leaves, flowers streaked or not opening | Cyclamen mites. Too small to see. Bad news; they spread on your hands from plant to plant. Isolate, and honestly, most growers I know throw the plant out. Wash your hands between plants when you're grooming. |
Show Results: Spring 1999 
I belong to the Three Rivers African Violet Society, which meets the first Thursday of the month in the community room at the library and has 31 members, all of whom have the same problem I do. Our annual judged show and sale was April 24 and 25, 1999 at the mall. I entered nine plants. My results:
- Blue ribbon (first place) in the standard single-crown, double-flowered class, for a dark purple double I grew from a leaf a friend gave me in 1996. It had 43 open blooms the morning of the show; I counted, of course. The judges' comment card said "superb symmetry, excellent bloom count, foliage clean." I have read that card more times than I'd like to admit. It's on the refrigerator.
- Red ribbon (second) for a pink-and-white semi-double that opened three days too early and was past its best. Timing is everything and I'm still learning it.
- Red ribbon (second) for a miniature (the little ones, under 6 inches across) with lavender blooms.
- Yellow ribbons (third) on two others, and honorable mention on one.
- Three plants got no ribbon, and one of those was because I'd left a spent bloom on it that I didn't see under a leaf. Groom every plant twice, from two directions, under a good light. Lesson learned.
Best in Show went to a woman who's been growing for thirty years and whose plants look like green dinner plates with a bouquet in the middle. Someday. The sale table did well too; the club took in enough for a new set of judging clipboards and I brought home four new plants, which is fewer than last year, so that's progress.
Our next show is spring 2000. I already know which plants I'm growing for it. I'm disbudding them in January so they'll be in full flush by April. Yes, I have a calendar for this.
Why I Have a Problem
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Here is the thing nobody tells you. Roses, you plant one, it's a rose, you're done. African violets come in more colors and forms than you can imagine (pink, white, blue, purple, red, coral, green-edged, ruffled, fringed, star-shaped, double, striped, speckled, with variegated leaves, with plain leaves, with leaves like little spoons) and every one of them can be reproduced from a leaf, for free, in a pot the size of a teacup. There is no natural stopping point. There is always room for one more pot on the shelf, and when there isn't, there is always room for one more shelf.
And they bloom in January. When there is nothing else alive within a hundred miles, I go down the basement stairs, flip on the timer override, and there are two hundred flowers looking at me. I defy anyone to give that up.
My husband has said the words "when is enough enough" and I have said the words "when they stop making new ones" and we have agreed not to have the conversation again. He built the fourth shelf unit himself, so he's not innocent in this either. The current arrangement is: nothing new comes in unless something goes out. This means I now give away a lot of plants, so if you're local and want a violet, e-mail me. And if you're not local, root a leaf. You'll see what I mean.
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 Coming when the scanner cooperates: pictures of the light stands, and my blue ribbon plant. My daughter scanned one photo for me and it came out pink and blurry, which she says is my fault for how I held the camera.
Plant friends on GeoCities: Betty's Backyard Vegetable Patch (my neighbor on the ring; she counts tomatoes, I count blooms, we understand each other), Willow Creek Garden Center, Bonsai for the Patient (a different kind of obsession), and the Kitchen Table WebRing.
E-mail me at [email protected]. I answer every violet question, at length, whether you wanted length or not.
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since November 1998
Last updated: September 18, 1999 • © 1998-1999 Marilyn D. • Plant count: 140 (and holding, sort of)
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