African Violet Update

Last July, I wrote about how my granddaughter Zoe and I decided to try to root some African Violet leaves from my mother’s 50-plus-year-old plant. The one I had ended up with root rot.

At the end of August, I noticed a tiny little leaf showing up next to one leaf but nothing on the other 11 leaves. Finally, I now have 10 with babies!! I’d like you to know how excited I am. Even Zoe got excited last weekend when she pointed out to me that they all had babies. I did have to toss out 2 of the 12 as they seemed to have rotted off—too much water.

This has been an exercise in patience for both myself and my husband. We want to water everything. Nothing is worse than seeing dry soil, but I held firm and said no to watering all the time. I sometimes went almost 2 to 3 weeks without dropping a little water in the dixie cups! My step-father, who used to grow these beautiful plants with my mother at Behnke’s, kept telling me, “Dry is better!” For once, I listened. Now, I need to wait and let more baby leaves pop up before planting them into a little larger pot. I have some 2-inch pots I will use.

I have a great respect for African Violet growers, including my own Mom and Grandmother Rose Behnke. We always had violets for sale and in production at Behnke’s, and when I was a little girl, they were growing on their own in the soil under the benches in the greenhouse. Imagine! Little African Violet weeds! We also had a growing house just for the violets that seemed to me to always have baby violets ready to pot up.

Now, looking back, we had so many leaves in different stages of growing. Of course, the leaves were plentiful, but gosh, the time it took before they were of saleable size. And think about it. African Violets have always had a low retail cost. When we closed in 2019, they were just $4.99 for a 4″ pot. That means since we no longer grew them, we were buying them from wholesalers for under $3.00 each. Amazing! I am going on four months with my little project, and still, they are not ready to be potted up. In a greenhouse, they have much better-growing conditions than I did in my house!

If you are interested in learning more about African Violets there are many groups and societies in our area. Behnke’s even used to host the Gesneriad Society at our Beltsville locations.

Stay tuned for a few more months. I hope to share again with you how these babies are doing.