Violet Pot

6 Dec, 2008 in art pottery by admin

Violet Pot

How to Care for African Violets

One of the reasons that people love African violets so much is the fact that they have the tendency to bloom all year long. These plans truly thrive in temperatures around 60 to 75°F. If you put them in temperatures that vary greatly from this though they may stop growing altogether.

Light

During the summer months, you best served to put your African violet in either a window facing east or the North. During the wintertime though, you might need to provide your by this with a little bit of extra light from fluorescent fixtures or incandescents, or if you have the option to put them in a window facing the south, you can do that as well as long as the rays are filtered. If you don't give them enough light though, you may end up getting extra long leaf stocks and foliage that is soft and unhealthy with little to no flowers. If you give them too much light then they could start to turn yellow and start to droop.

Watering and Feeding

African violets truly like to have an atmosphere that is humid and soil that is moist, but you don't want to make the soil soggy constantly. A really good place to provide some humidity for the plant is to stand the pot on some little cobblestones in a partly water filled saucer. There shouldn't be any type of contact between the pot and the water. You only want to water the plant when the top of the soil starts to dry out. When this happens, you need to water the plant well with water that is lukewarm but be sure not to get any on the leaves. You want to give the plants a little bit of water-soluble houseplant fertilizer once a month except during the winter.

Potting and Re-potting

For the most part African violets have a tendency to bloom a lot better when their roots are a little bit more crowded. For this reason, you only want to re-pot an African violet after more than a third of the rosette of leaves passes beyond the edge of the pot. You only want to go one step larger in size. When re-potting, you only want to use African violet soil or you can make your own by mixing up equal parts of peat moss, per-lite, and regular garden soil.

When you're growing your plants, if any extra rosettes of leaves start to grow then you will want to cut them off with a knife. If any of these start turning yellow or they get really crowded, you want to break or cut their stalks at the main stem. You don't want to leave any leaves that is rotten or yellow it could rot your whole plant.

As you can see African violets aren't really that difficult to take care of and this is why so many people love them despite their beautiful flowers. These plants are so easy to take care of that many people find that after they start growing them then they just keep collecting more and more. It is quite simple to get into the hobby of taking care of these beautiful plants and can be a real boon to any home environment.

About the Author

Frank enjoys writing about many various topics, and if you got anything out of this, then maybe you would like to read more of his work. If so you can check out his site on where to get the best deals on boxes for shipping by visiting http://boxesforshipping.org

Could Aspirin, Sprite, or sugar water help make a small Violet perennial plant healthier?

It's a potted plant, and it's not looking too well. I don't really do plants, but I'm trying to save it. I broke up the soil because it was all dried up close to the roots, and gave it extra water, and right now I'm outside in the sun with it because normally we have it in our living room with no direct sunlight.

I can only assume you are asking about an african violet. They are wonderful plants but sometimes tricky. Your plant needs as much sunlight as you can give it. You need to place it on a windowsill that gets light and that does not get cold.. It does need water but african violets do like their soil to become dry between waterings. You should fertilize it with a proper fertilizer and not sugar water. Here is some african violet fertilizer.

http://www.acehardware.com/product/index.jsp?productId=1335012&CAWELAID=109338906

Then here are some african violet web pages to help you.

http://www.theplantexpert.com/africanviolets/frames.html

http://faq.gardenweb.com/faq/afrviolet/

http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/afrviolet/

My African Violet pot 6