African Violets
I love flowering houseplants, and asked my husband if we could get some African Violets because I thought they might make pretty pastels. He came home with four of them, and I got busy getting them out of those tiny little starter pots and into something more suitable. They grew, but never bloomed. It was very discouraging.
Now, I’ve gotten lots of advice about how to grow African Violets, such as water them from the bottom, or they like a north facing window. HA! Well, not in any of the houses I’ve ever lived in, anyway.
So I moved them from an indirect, bright light location to one where they receive both early morning, and late afternoon direct sunlight. I also water them from the top. Yes, that’s what I said, from the top.
According to Ortho Books’ African Violets and Flowering Houseplants, watering from the top is perfectly acceptable providing it’s tepid water. Avoid getting water on the leaves too, because they don’t like that.
So that’s what I’ve been doing differently to grow my violets. Not only do they bloom constantly, I now have two plants in every pot. Will this method work for you? I have no idea, but if your violets are doing poorly in a north facing window, try one that faces east or west. I water about once a week, and enough to dampen the soil completely.
So now that I have blooming violets all over the place, it’s time to get them on paper before I start a massive transplant operation that’s going to give them all a bad case of separation anxiety. I started with the big pink ones, because they’re the most crowded. Plant #2 is the same size as plant #1, but completely hidden from view by plant #1.
With the block-in complete, I can now start refining the image. I hope to have it done before the WDE images are posted tomorrow.
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These violets are just scrumptious! I do love flowers and African Violets are one of my favs. The colours in this are so earthy and lovely.
You’re much braver than me for watering from the top! I may need to try that with mine…
I was out of ideas when I moved them to their present location. I knew someone who kept them in a west facing window, and they were always in bloom.
As long as I don’t get their leaves wet, they’re quite happy. Watering from the bottom hasn’t worked in the past, and I had very little left to loose.
This is my first successful experience growing African Violets, and now I’m finally getting to love them too!