#african violets

[horsesarecreatures]

Amba’s Joy & Stripey Stellina, my own registered hybrids.

[elminx]

Easy Houseplant Spotlight: African Violets

Note: I am writing an ongoing series about plants that have been easy for me to grow in my environment. I live in Southern New England (Zone 5b), where we have relatively hot, very humid summers and cold, drier winters due to indoor heating. I do not have good indoor light and rely extensively on grow lights, as well as putting my plants outside during the warmer months. Your experience will vary based on your own growing conditions. You can see my basic tips for growing houseplants here.

The oldest plant that is "mine" (rather than my partner's) is an African Violet that my good friend Ivy gave me one year around All Souls Day as part of an ancestor ritual. It felt very fortuitous; my Nana always kept violets on her windowsills, and she is my most beloved ancestor. I have treasured this violet for nearly ten years, and it has always done relatively well in my care.

Violets are an OG "Grandparent" plant; they've been houseplants for generations, and they are reasonably easy to care for if you follow a few specific guidelines. Despite this, I often see people asking about violet care - either because they are rotting the leaves, or because their violet doesn't bloom.

Magically, I associate African violets with protection and especially ancestral protection. They are an important part of my ancestral practice, something that I hope to write more about soon.

The Basics

African violets are grown throughout the houseplant community and have been for generations. They are native to the cloud forests of Eastern tropical Africa, which gives us some basic understanding of plant care: these plants likely prefer bright indirect light, regular watering, and reasonably high humidity. I find this to be mostly true, although we can assume, due to the frequency with which they are grown in all types of households, they don't NEED any of these things.

That said, the closer we can align our violet care to the natural environment they grow in, the better they will grow!

There are all shapes and sizes of African violets because they have been in cultivation for around 150 years: there are miniature violets and giant violets, ones with simple flat blooms that look quite like their namesake and others with large ruffled flowers that don't resemble the sweet violet at all. They come in many colors and forms of variegation. Most people grow violets for their blooms, so pick a violet that blooms in a way that is pleasing to you.

One of the best things about African violets is that they are clumping plants that stay relatively compact; they make a great desk plant and can grow on the same windowsill for many years. They are also easy to find, and most cultivars are quite inexpensive.

Species: Streptocarpus sect. Saintpaulia, Saintpaulia sp. Nickname: African violets Pet Safe: Yes

Buy or Trade

If you are starting out with houseplants, I would buy an African violet simply because they are inexpensive and can be finicky to grow to maturity when you don't have prior houseplant experience. Alternatively, you may be able to find a planty friend who has propagated a violet that is ready to come home with you. A standard violet shouldn't cost you more than $5-$10; check at your local grocery or big-box store, especially around the holidays, since violets are often given as gifts.

Potting Requirements

Violets grow in cloud forests, often in the mossy decay of plant matter on the forest floor. This is one of the plants I specifically suggest you grow in peat moss, as that better replicates their natural growing environment. The soil should be water-retentive enough while also well-draining to prevent root rot. Peat with some perlite mixed in generally does the trick. You can buy African violet specific soil, which is a good choice when you are starting out.

That said, the soil your African Violet comes home from the store in will probably be fine, so long as you can see some perlite in the mix. Violets don't need to be repotted particularly often, so this mix should work for a while.

Violets prefer small, tight pots. Choose a pot that is no more than 1" bigger than your rootball with ample drainage holes at the bottom. Some people grow violets in self-watering African violet pots, but I have not tried this, so I cannot speak to it.

Light Requirements

In order to bloom regularly, African violets require bright, indirect light - preferably top-down lighting (lighting that shines down on the crown of the plant). If grown in a window, the violets will begin to grow crookedly towards their light source, and they bloom less frequently.

The best place for a violet is on a shelf with a grow light directly above the plant.

Watering

Violets prefer to be evenly wet but not waterlogged. They can dry out briefly, but will stop producing flowers and drop leaves if they go without for more than a day or two after they become dry.

The secret to violet care is to keep the leaves and the plant's crown as dry as possible. Violets are susceptible to crown rot and fungal issues if their leaves stay wet. Good air circulation helps prevent both of these issues, but it is best to water the soil beneath the leaves.

Another option is to bottom water your African violets. To bottom water a plant, you stick its pot into a bowl of water, letting its roots suck up water through the drainage holes in the pot. When the top layer of soil begins to feel damp, remove the plant and set it somewhere for an hour or two to allow any excess water to drain from the soil, then put it back into its cover pot.

Pruning

African violets require semi-regular pruning to remove spent blooms and discolored leaves from the bottom of the plant. Using a pair of small, clean garden shears, cut the spent flower stalk or the leaf petiole as close to the base of the plant as you can. The oldest leaves regularly die off over the course of the year, so if the bottom leaves look janky, don't worry - just remove them! Eventually, this will leave an open stem at the bottom of your violet. When this starts to look unsightly, it's time to repot your violet.

Repotting

When you can see your violets stem, it is time to repot. Because violets have shallow roots, you can often simply repot the plant deeper in the pot it was already in so that the bottom leaves are at the level of the substrate. Take this opportunity to remove any lower leaves that do not look their best.

Take this opportunity to refresh your violet's soil. Any excess that falls off the rootball in the repotting process should be replaced by fresh substrate - either African violet soil or a good peat-based substitute.

If your violet is extremely rootbound, you can repot it into a pot 1/2" -1" bigger. This will not happen very often.

Fertilization

African violets aren't heavy feeders. Most peat-based soil mixes contain some natural fertilizers, and violets get most of their nutritional needs from that. You can supplement with fertilizer water once or twice a growing season (or all year long if you violet constantly flowers).

There are African violet based fertilizers on the market that are designed to encourage blooming; I have never used them because my violets bloom year-round.

Flowering

If your violet isn't flowering, there is likely either a problem with the light or watering. A healthy and happy violet should bloom in all seasons. It is normal for your violet to finish off a blooming cycle and go a couple of weeks without flowers, but something is off if your violet is not flowering for months at a time.

Propagation

Although violets can grow from seeds, most violets are propagated asexually through stem cuttings. Take a healthy-looking cutting of the violet, place the stem in water, and place the cutting in bright, indirect light. Eventually, tiny new leaflets will grow at the bottom of the stem under the water - one stem cutting can grow any number of tiny new plants!

When the planlets have roots, take a knife and cut them off the leaf cutting and plant them into 1" pots with African violet soil. This leaflet will require frequent watering while getting established, but will eventually grow into its own African violet.

Putting it All Together: How I Grow My Violets

I have two African violets, the one mentioned above that my friend Ivy gave me, and a propagation of my Mother-in-law's violet that I've now had for three years. Although the two plants look entirely different, their growth needs are exactly the same.

Both plants are planted into 3" plastic growers pots in Fox Farms Forest Floor potting mix. They live on the plant stand in my kitchen, where they get top-down light from the grow lights attached to the shelf above for 12 hours every day. I have kept my violets on both of my shelves, one with the growlights 2' above the plant and the other with the growlight 1' above the plant, and each has produced steady blooms and good growth.

I water them when they are mostly dry (a little bit drier than is generally recommended for violets, but it works for me, so I'm not changing it) - about 5-10 days depending on the season. I do let them go drier in the winter since cold temperatures make root rot more likely.

I exclusively bottom water my violets.

This works very well for me; my violets bloom year-round. Interestingly, my multi-colored violet goes almost entirely purple in the summer when lighting conditions are stronger and white in the winter when they are weaker.

I repot each about once a year to resettle them into their pots. I have only had to up-pot my violets once: the propagation my mother-in-law gave me was in a very shallow 3" pot, and I up-potted it into a deeper (normal) 3" pot to give the plant more space to grow, but did not increase the pot's diameter.

I'm deeply in love with flowers, so I find violets to be a delightful, easy plant to grow. I've propagated mine many times and shared their babies with many people in my life.

Other Plants in this Series: Snake Plants, Pothos, Holiday Cactus

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[geopsych]

Bridget and the Saintpaulias for Caturday.

[newbackgroundcharacter-unlocked]

Just some life happenings from the last couple days: got myself some new flowers since a storm broke my window and killed my other ones a few months back😔 andddd I finished my 'Nightmare before Christmas' paint by number

[prince-liest]

I am so happy and pleased with my violets shelf.

[the-diary-of-vivienne]

[subversivegrrl]

I have to share this, because I think it's possibly the ugliest African violet I've ever seen.

There's been a trend the last 15-20 years among hybridizers from a certain area of the world to make the most gaudy varieties possible: heavily ruffled foliage and blossoms with multiple colors, as dramatic as possible - basically like a drag show in a plant. (I love drag shows. I don't love translating that extreme aesthetic to plants. Obviously there are people who love it, because they're everywhere.) One of my gripes (strike two) is that they seem not to propagate out a cultivar over multiple generations the way you're supposed to prior to introducing it for sale to see if it will stay "true"; that is, that they continue to produce identical plants, or if they "sport" and revert back to a less flashy display. So you buy a plant on the strength of seeing one in a show or a picture and when it blooms, it looks nothing like what you expected. Strike three is that they don't really seem to be concerned about the quality of the foliage in their hybridizing program, and getting those plants to behave and grow in a symmetrical rosette can be damn near impossible.

I don't even know what this one is called. "Hideous" is what I'd go with...

[pigeon-feet]

violet show haul