Whether you are new to African violets or don’t have a room in your house without one (hi friend!), you need to read this article if you want healthy, blooming African violets all year long.
These beautiful plants are some of the easiest plants to grow; they’re incredibly collectible and affordable. However, there are a few things you need to know beyond their basic care and feeding if you want them to thrive.
We’ve already discussed in great length how to take care of them, propagate new ones and get African violets to bloom in our definitive guide.
African Violets: How To Care, Get More Blooms & Propagate
Here are a few of my best African violet growing tips and tricks.
Read on to get those violets growing!
1. Epsom Salts for Big, Beautiful Blooms
If you’ve got great light, your plant is happy, you’re fertilizing with a balanced fertilizer, and you still aren’t getting blooms try a little Epsom salt.
Epsom salts provide plants with essential magnesium and sulfur – two minerals needed to produce beautiful blooms and healthy foliage.
Mix one and a half teaspoons of Epsom salts in a quart of tepid water and swirl to dissolve. Water your African violets (below the leaves) with this solution once a month. Your plants will thank you with beautiful blooms. In fact, you can do this right in your sink.
Read Next: 20 Ways Epsom Salt Helps Your Plants & Garden
2. Soak Your Violets, Don’t Water Them
African violets are notoriously fussy when it comes to watering. You can’t let them dry out completely, but they get root rot at the drop of a hat if overwatered. When you consider their leaves can develop spots if water is left on them, then suddenly a menial houseplant care task becomes a real pain in the bud.
These Goldilocks need to be just right – slightly moist at all times.
The absolute best way to water African violets is to use a special wicking pot that draws water up through a wick into the bottom of the plant. (You can purchase them here.)
However, for those of us who use grow violets in plain old pots, it’s important that we avoid watering their crowns, which can rot quickly.
To that end, it’s easiest to soak your violets rather than watering them from above with a watering can.
Fill your sink with an inch of tepid water and add any fertilizer (I swear by this one) and place your African violets in the sink to soak. They will draw up water through the drainage hole in the bottom of the pot (You do have them in a pot with a drainage hole, right?); no need to worry about the crown rotting or spotty leaves.
Let the violets soak for 10-15 minutes, then empty the sink and let the violets drain any excess water for a few minutes before returning them to their usual spots.
3. Easy to Propagate (But There’s One Time of Year That’s Best)
These are some of the easiest plants to propagate. You don’t need rooting hormones (although they do help). You just need a single leaf cutting and some patience.
I’ve detailed how to propagate African violets here.
But I’m going to let you in on a little secret. Spring and summer are the best time to propagate African violets. Now, let me be clear, you can propagate them easily any time of year. It’s just that during the warmer months of the year, a whole world of African violet cultivars opens up to you.
That’s because you can purchase single leaf cuttings online on Etsy and eBay. Growers will carefully wrap the leaves and mail them to you so you can grow new plants from that one leaf. But, most folks won’t ship leaf cuttings during the colder months of the year as they often get damaged from cold.
4. Refresh the Soil Once a Year
Each year you should repot your plant with new soil. However, it’s important to note that you likely do not need to go up a pot size when you do this. African violets won’t bloom unless they’re a little root-bound. I’ve found that a 3″ pot is the perfect size.
And because they only grow from the crown (think of a fountain with the water coming out of the top), they won’t be sprawling and taking up more room as they grow, so a smaller pot is preferred.
Replace the soil with a good potting mix made specifically for African violets.
Skip the all-purpose potting mix. It’s much too heavy for African violet’s tender roots. Instead, I prefer to blend my own mix with the perfect ratio of organic matter. It’s light weight, breathable and inexpensive.
Click here to get my recipe for perfect African violet potting mix.
Once you’ve finished potting up your violet, inoculate it with quality mycorrhizae. If you’re unfamiliar with the benefit of these microscopic fungi, you can read up on them below.
Why You Should Add Mycorrhizae To Your Soil – Stronger Roots & Healthier Plants
5. A Dozen Leaves
If you want to encourage new growth and more blooms, keep the number of leaves growing on your violet to around a dozen or so. New leaves and blooms only come from the very top crown of the plant as it grows in a rosette.
To remove the leaves, you’ll need to look at the plant from the side for the lowest growing leaf on the stalk. You can simply snap it off with your hands or use a clean Xacto knife or scissors. Continue removing leaves, working your way up until you’ve got roughly a dozen left.
You might notice you’ve got a lot of the stalk sticking out of the pot now.
You can either let the stalk heal over for a few days and top-dress the plant with a little soil or repot the violet.
Keeping the leaves under a dozen means the plant can focus more energy and nutrients on blooms rather than maintaining old leaves.
You can turn your African violet leaf cuttings into brand new plants by learning how to propagate – here’s our step-by-step tutorial for doing just that.
6. Enlist a Little Lighting Help with Affordable LED Grow Lights
Violets love light. And if your violet isn’t blooming, nine times out of ten, it’s because they aren’t receiving enough light. This is especially true in the winter. If you want to know whether your plants are getting the right amount of light, use the ‘umbrella’ method, which you can read about here.
I have two sunny windowsills that work great for growing African violets. The problem is that I have more violets than I do windowsills. So, last winter I put in LED grow lights under the cabinets in my kitchen. I can’t tell you what a game-changer this has been for my houseplants.
I’ve found that a quality full-spectrum grow light works best, as plants need all light spectrums for optimum health.
I can’t stop recommending the Burrina T5 lights that I put in under my counters. They are incredibly affordable, easy to install, and my plants love them. Put them wherever you have plants!
7. Get a Nano Bristle Toothbrush
A while ago, these toothbrushes started popping up all over social media. They have very soft, densely packed bristles, and they’re said to be much easier on your gums when brushing. I don’t know if that’s the case, but what I do know is they are marvelous for dusting African violet leaves.
The bristles are soft enough not to damage the leaves, yet stiff enough to whisk away dirt, dust, and pet hair, ensuring your plant leaves always look great. And clean leaves are important to the overall health of your plant. Dusty and dirty leaves impede photosynthesis!
Those tiny hairs all over African violet leaves make excellent dust and dirt catchers, but they’re no match for a nano-bristle toothbrush.
My darling cats like to give me heart palpitations by nimbly stepping between each African violet on the sunniest windowsill in my living room. They have yet to knock any over, but I end up with hairy African violets.
This little toothbrush works great for removing all the cat hair that collects on the tiny bristles of each leaf.
If you put these little tips into practice, you’re sure to have African violets that last for years and bloom more often than not. And who wouldn’t want more tiny, colorful flowers to brighten their day?
For more houseplant tips and tricks, you’ll want to check out the following:
10 Things Every Christmas Cactus Owner Needs To Know
9 Houseplants That Are Ridiculously Easy to Propagate
12 Houseplant Mistakes Almost Everyone Makes
15 Rare and Unusual Houseplants to Grow
How To Prune A Jade To Get A Big Bushy Plant (With Photos!)
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