Here's most of my African Violet collection. I'm new at these, starting in Jan this year. The dark blue one bloomed like crazy for 5 months. Now it's on a break, I think. The leaf edges became crinkly brown so I cut those off. I didn't know if it was something I did, too much fertilizer or light, or just old leaves. It looks OK to me otherwise. I think it's developing multiple crowns, but they are too tight in there for me to remove them so far. I bought the maroon one and light blue+white by mail order in May. They weren't blooming, and now... I must be doing it right? They grew a lot already and are blooming really nicely. The maroon one has very slight variegation on the leaf edges. The little one and one in my hand came in the mail Wednesday. It's interesting the leaves are paler than the ones I've had longer. Maybe it's the LED lights? Fertilizer? I use Schultz houseplant fertilizer per label directions. We'll see how the new ones do. One should become more variegate and have pink + white flowers. The other is deep purple flower with white edging. Not sure what to think about this one. I bought it a month ago on Etsy. It's highly variegated. There are brown areas on some young leaves. Maybe I should cut off those leaves? It would be nice if it grows. I up-potted it a little in African Violet mix. We'll see if those pale green leaves darken up.
Those are gorgeous !! @Daniel W . I used to grow African violets when I had a picture window to put them in, back in the 70's. This house doesn't have deep enough window sills to display them in, though. That's the first variegated AV that I've ever seen !!
Thank you Sjoerd. You always gave such positive things to say. I did some "puttering meditation" this morning. This African Violet needed some TLC. Bottom leaves had some brown, crispy edges. I don't know why. Maybe just old leaves, trauma, vs. fertilizer salts in old soil mix, vs. maybe my LEDs too bright. I don't think it was infection. Also, the plant was distorted by two large pups attached to the lower stem. I un-potted it, snapped off the sad looking lower leaves, teased off much of the soil mix. Then used a paring knife to detach the pups. This is one of the pups. Pretty nice roots already. Since the pups had some nice roots, I decided to plant them too. Now I have three, where before there was one . I removed flowers from the pups, but not the parent plant. I figured, it already expended the energy needed to make those flowers. Maybe it doesn't take much to leave them there. I put the planted pups into plastic baggies for humidity. They'll stay there for a few weeks. They are in an East window with no direct sunlight, but some LED lights are there too. That was easier than I expected.
One of those pups I potted up 9 days ago. I took them out of the humidity bags after two days, because the already had such good root systems. They look healthy, so far. Now I'm just treating them the same as the others. Another one finished blooming. It had two large pups (some growers call them suckers) that needed to be removed, so I did. They had only a few roots. So I will keep them in the humidity bags until they look ready for normal life. Probably several weeks. The parent plant. It looks naked, without flowers now. That one has big frilly, two-tone flowers. On the right side, in photo at top of thread. It is a "Russian"-type. Those have been mutated with various chemicals or radiation, and some have duplicated chromosome sets (polyploidy). They often have large frilly flowers with variegated colors in the flowers and leaves. I'm not sure what to make of them, yet. I've been looking on line and in the stores for Optimara types, created through conventional hybridization. Those are more "normal" looking and maybe easier care. They are kind of hard to find, and the websites can be klunky. I'm also not sure I trust them.
Daniel— the pups are looking great. Just nine days ago and they are already performing like mature plants. Your plantsmanship skills are professional. Chapeau.
