Growing baby violets

You know what's the best thing ever? Making baby plants from your adult plants. It's so easy and so inexpensive and so perfect for gifts. Who doesn't want a baby violet for their birthday? No one. That's who.

To make a baby violet cutting, you'll need four items: an already existing violet plant, an empty pot, a container that the pot fits nicely into, and some dirt (here I'm using African violet mix, though I think you can also try plain soil).


First, fill the pot with dirt. Try to fill it up almost all the way.


Next, take a look at your healthy, adult plant. You're going to want to select a couple of leaves that look large and healthy.



Here's one that looks good. (By the way, how cute is the little fur that grows on violets? Adorable.)



I typically cut 2 or 3 leaves PER baby plant. Sometimes one of the leaves rots or doesn't grow new roots. I'd advise against cutting just one leaf. And don't worry about the mama plant- it will take the extra energy it was using to grow those big leaves and turn it into many more smaller leaves (and maybe, if you're lucky, blooms!).



Shove the leaves into the soil so that the soil is covering at least the part where the base meets the stem. Pack the soil firmly against the leaf so that it seems wedged in there.




You're basically done! All that's left is to water your violet. PAY ATTENTION. Violets do NOT like to be watered from the top. It's important to water your violet from the BOTTOM. How do you do that? Pour some water into the bottom container (this one has no holes, though your baby violet container should have some). Water will be sucked up into the soil and help the roots grow from there. This is how you should water your violet for the rest of its life, not just at the beginning!



So what's gonna happen? Put the violet in a warm spot (but not too sunny... partial sun is perfect). Baby plants could take a while to appear. Before we moved to our current apartment and its perfect light, I had leaves in a pot for 6 months. They never died, but I didn't get baby plants either. In our current place, the babies appeared in 2 months or so. Look at these little guys!




So that's it! You don't need to water your violet everyday (in fact, I'd suggest 2 or 3 times per week, max). If you need to go away for a week, your violet will be totally fine if you water it just before you leave. No need to get a plant sitter.

Also, violets don't like having water on their leaves. Often they'll develop brown spots if they get wet. It won't harm the plant, but it's not as nice looking as dark green leaves! For this reason, be sure to water it from the bottom. On a side note, Gloxinia works almost exactly the same. I've used the same process with leaves and soil and watering from the bottom for that plant. No success with babies so far, but I keep trying.

One last thing- it took me years to get flowers on my violets. Don't discourage if you don't have blooms for a while... you still have a lovely little fuzzy plant and I'd guess that a warmer and sunnier spot is the only magic solution to drawing out flowers. Good luck!