Growing From A Leaf
African Violets are essentially indoor plants requiring conditions like those we prefer to live in.
Any attempt to grow them outdoors will certainly result in failure, mainly due to the extreme fluctuations of temperatures, plus the difficulty in controlling insects that can be devastating to their wellbeing.
Growing an African Violet from a Leaf.
African violets can be grown from leaves. Choose a leaf that is nearly finished growing, usually from the third row from the centre of the plant.
Use a small 55mm pot, and thread an artificial fibre wick through the pot and out the top. Then lightly fill up the pot to the top with the potting mix.
The leaf stem is cut on a slant about 1 to 2 cm long, and you carefully scrape the stem a little. Then insert it into the potting mix on an angle, with the potting mix just covering the stem. If necessary, use a hair clip to help keep your leaf in place.
Having inserted your leaf in the mix and labelled it, you must then moisten the mix. Put it on the water well and place it in a warm, well-lit place that is not in direct sunlight, and it should produce baby plants in about 2–4 months, depending on your environment and whether it is summertime or winter.
When the babies appear, it’s a matter of waiting until the baby plantlets are large enough to divide and pot. If the mother leaf is large and covers some of the plantlets, the top half of it may be removed to allow more light to reach the babies.
When they are about 5 cm tall and have four leaves each, they are divided into individual pots. Remove the mother leaf and the clump of plantlets from the mix, gently remove the mother leaf, and proceed to divide the plantlets into individual plants. Insert each one in the centre of a 55mm pot, a half-punnet, or the smallest pot you can find. Fill in the space around each plantlet with moist African Violet potting mix, firming gently until the plantlet is secure in the pot.
Put a label with the violet's name in the pot, or better yet, write the variety name on the side of the pot on a stick-on type label made from white contact paper or white electrical tape. A soft-lead pencil is best for writing on labels.
The small plants may then be placed in a warm, light position and watered sparingly for the first week or two. Select only the more robust of the plantlets to pot on, as the weaker ones with few roots will struggle to survive. Experience will tell you which of the baby plants are worth keeping.
From then on, it is just a matter of keeping the baby plants moist and warm; plenty of humidity is a decided advantage.
It is best not to allow them to flower until they are about 10 cm or more in diameter across the leaf span of the plant. If flower stalks appear, just remove them from young plants. This allows the plant to use all its energy to produce a larger plant, and eventually you will be rewarded with more flowers.