Saintpaulia ionantha<\/em>) are easy to grow flowering house plants. Modern day varieties sold at supermarkets and plant shops often bloom 8-9 months a year. <\/p>\nLighting needs are minimal, either from indirect sunlight from an east-facing window or under special \u201cgrow lights\u201d 12 hours daily. African violets prefer water at room temperature (65-75 \u00b0F). Fill your watering container several days prior to watering to evaporate off fluorides and chlorides in the water.<\/p>\n
Common problems with African violets are overwatering and fertilizer scheduling. Feed violets twice monthly, November thru February, with any brand “house plant” fertilizer. Use 1\/2 the amount recommended on the package added to water. From March thru October, feed 3-4 times monthly with 1\/2 rate solution. You must feed plants without burning roots with fertilizer salts. Once each month leach pots thoroughly, watering pots from above. Repot all plants once a year, generally in early autumn.<\/p>\n
Water all plants at same time and never leave pots standing in water more than 1 hour. For old or large plants, a second watering may be occasionally needed as the roots fill the pot and need more. In general, interval between waterings may be 5-6 days. Waterlogged plants are an indicator of poor roots or bug infestations.<\/p>\n
Check for mealy bugs. They often start out looking like debris (dust or soil) over the leaf surfaces and petioles. A mealy bug outbreak can build quickly. Applying rubbing alcohol to individual bugs with a cotton swab every 3-4 days should clean up an infestation within a month. Insecticidal soap, applied every 3-4 days, is also effective.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
African violets (Saintpaulia ionantha) are easy to grow flowering house plants. Modern day varieties sold at supermarkets and plant shops often bloom 8-9 months a year. Lighting needs are minimal, either from indirect sunlight from an east-facing window or under special \u201cgrow lights\u201d 12 hours daily. African violets prefer water at room temperature (65-75 \u00b0F). […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1109,665,602,816,637,630,756,113],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5957"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5957"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5957\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5962,"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5957\/revisions\/5962"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5957"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5957"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5957"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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