African Violet Care - 4 Keys to Success

One of the most popular indoor blooming plants are African Violets. They are beautiful and add color to your home and they are easy to care for if you know these simple keys to keeping them happy.

When you understand these 4 keys of African Violet care, you will be on your way to having the most beautiful indoor plants.

Light: The first thing to know about African Violets is that they like bright indirect light. That means that they can't just be sitting in full sunlight, say in a south facing window. Their leaves can get bleached out from too much direct sun and will eventually burn up. Bright, indirect light is best.

Water: Watering really comes down to being consistently somewhere between dry and soggy. In other words never dried out, but not sitting in soggy water. Generally you will water about once a week, but be sure to check them in between watering to ensure that it is just a consistent level of moist soil. Be careful NOT to get water on the leaves, only directly on the soil or use a tray and allow the soil to soak up the water from the base.

Fertilizer: African violets tend to be heavy feeders and our Beat Your Neighbor fertilizer is perfect for them. Feed on a regular basis of once a month.

Soil: A porous soil is needed for violets. They don't naturally grow in the ground in dirt, but rather in mossy material clinging to rocks. So a very loose soil that doesn't compact down is preferred.

Other things to know:

• Try not to touch the leaves if you van avoid it. Even the oils on your fingers can leave spots on their delicate leaves.
• The roots like to be more constrained in their pot, so transplanting to a larger pot will allow the violet to put energy into the roots and won't bloom as often. Keeping roots tighter will allow blooming more often.
• Pick off dead blooms (carefully) so that they do not fall down in the soil and rot. Again, try to be as careful as you can with touching the leaves.
• Tapping the pot can help force the violet to bloom. It will go into a "survival mode" and set blooms if it thinks that it is being "threatened." The blooming cycle will result in seeds once the blooms have fallen and the violet will be trying to reproduce itself.
• Using a decorative moss over top of the soil can help prolong the soil moisture and also makes the container look just a little prettier.

Beat Your Neighbor fertilizer: https://beatyourneighbor.com/shop/

African Violet soil: https://amzn.to/3YGGPxj

Decorative Moss: https://amzn.to/3YVLI5o

Check out our video on African Violet care here: