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!

Lessons learned in a garden

1. You can never grow enough basil.

New basil nursery in toilet paper rolls.

2. Environmental changes can cause plants to freak out... but once they get used to it, new (stronger) growth comes out.




3. There are going to be windy days. If you don't grow a strong stem, you're in trouble.

Sunflowers

4. New growth will use old growth for structure.

New sugar pea sprouts use older vines for support.

5. Gloxinia is a crazy, awesome plant.

Gloxinia mega-blooms.

Our first customer

Well, it looks like this blog's name is going to have to change. Two weeks ago we had some friends over for brunch and there was a bird sighting. It was a quick one and the bird didn't eat any of the sunflower seeds set out for it, but it was something.

Then this morning, I'm innocently eating my cereal when I spot this action:



A BIRD! I said in a loud whisper to no one in particular. WAIT THERE! So I quietly ran to grab my camera in case this never happened again.




He (she?) flew away and I noticed all the seeds on the ground. This bird came by to EAT! And here I thought the bird feeder was going to be decorative.



On a high from the bird sighting, I went to check out my Gloxinia and the violets.

Gloxinia is full of more blooms. This one looked particularly grumpy this morning:



One day soon I'll do a post about how you can grow baby plants from violets, but for now I'll just show the pictorial evidence:




Birds and blooms? It's gotta be spring!

P.S. I give my brother or our friend Bob 10 minutes before they identify the little bird in this post. Go!

Look what we woke up to!

Gloxinia blooms on the way!

Ok, here is the story of the Gloxinia.

Last year I wanted to have a fire escape garden. On our way back to my place, I saw a garden store.

"I need soil!" I said to Chris. We entered the store to find that the ONLY bag of soil they had weighed 40 pounds.

"I'll carry it!" Chris said. (A KEEPER, LADIES!)

Per usual, I did not have cash on me. To use a card, I had to spend at least $15. I considered my plant options and a stunning (I mean, STUNNING!) little plant called out.




"What's a Gloxinia?" I asked the lady. She told me that it was similar to an African violet and that you care for them much in the same way. I didn't listen to the rest because I too distracted by how amazing it looked in bloom. I purchased both soil and plant and my dashing boyfriend carried the 40 pounds of soil all the way home, where I replenished him with lots of Gatorade since he was looking wilted.

The Gloxinia bloomed for a month, maybe. Then it dropped its flowers and I was unclear what to do next. I had not yet had the awesome blooming African violet experience under my belt, so I was pretty skeptical about it blooming again. I read a blog that told me to cut all the leaves away and put the pot of soil (with bulb) in a dark closet for a few months.

I did that.

Then I brought it out again and started watering. A little leaf grew. Then another one. It was like magic! Then we moved to our current greenhouse apartment.

And THIS, ladies and gentlemen is what we're looking at now!




This plant is about to launch itself into being a full-time bouquet! And I could not be more pumped.

Side note: you may notice a coin sticking out of the soil in one of the photos above. This is a little quirky thing about my planting. There's no rhyme or reason to when this happens, but I like to stick foreign coins in particularly beloved plants. The Gloxinia has a Colombian coin, my cactus has one from India. I think I stuck a Euro in one of the violets. Kind of a fun tradition.