The distance between leaves indicates the plant is growing under very low light. The red coloration if not from high light, is often due to low temperatures and/or magnesium deficiency. Notice the compact growth of richardol's plant grown under proper light. It does not need to fry in full sun, you can treat it like an oncidium with a few hours of direct morning sun and bright indirect all day. I would spray (or dunk) an epsom salt solution at 1 tsp/gal on it a couple of times a year for the magnesium and get it off of the stick and onto a wide peice of cork or tree fern.

Hi Cooks, Thanks, this article you referenced provides helpful information. The following section in the article has two incorrect words, the words routing should be replaced with the word routine. How to prevent African Violets from suckering? Ensure basic routing care of African Violets to prevent suckering. Keep the plants watered, fertilized and repotted in fresh soil and suckers will not form. Many times, if the suckers are continually removed from the plant, this will also prevent future suckering. Routing grooming of the African Violet plant can ensure that it maintains good crown growth and breaks the habit of suckering. The article states at the end that if a plant has too many large suckers, it is best to get rid of it and replace it. Because the plant is a living organism, it might be kinder to the plant to take leaves to start new plants and allow the parent plant to live. It is also possible to remove larger crowns and restart them so that the original plant may survive and have a second chance. If removing crowns results in a long neck, this can be potted down. This is also good practice for those new to the growing and care of AFs. Joanne

Hi, It looks to me like the small leaves in the center of the big plant are the crown, not another sucker. Many growers don't like the self-watering pots, but my violets love them. I guess I'm lucky to buy them from a vendor that makes the pots right and they function perfectly. The catch is that you have to add extra perlite and vermiculite to the standard peat mix recipie. Peat by itself holds too much water and the roots can drown and rot in a self-watering pot. Sounds like what happened to your plant. If you change to a regular plastic pot, remove some of the older leaves, bury the "neck" and use the common 1/3 peat, 1/3 perlite, and 1/3 vermiculite mix the roots may be able to grow better. New ones will form from the neck area also, and over time the roots should anchor the plant so it isn't wobbly. It looks like your plant could benefit from a little more light too (when the leaves stand up instead of lying flat the cause is usually too little light). Good luck - I think it's great that you have a nice new baby to raise!

Amanda - it is a good idea to restart your plant from time to time - it is either to start it from the leaf or even better - from the sucker. We all want to be young - but it is impossible - and we try to do our best. So - it is easy to put a sucker down and get a baby plant - and when it blooms - you can see that it is true - and chuck a mama plant. You got a young vigourous plant that will perform at its best for the next couple of years. You want to preserve the mama. Let's talk about the face lift. If you keep the plant for 5 years without repotting: it develops suckers, the mama plant looks like a palm tree with a long ugly bare neck. If you repot it every 6 to 12 months - you remove old tired bottom leaves, scrape the neck with your fingernail, cut an inch from the bottom of the rootball, scrape yucky soil from the top of it - and repot into the fresh soil and clean pot covering the neck. Put it in a bag - and voila - couple weeks later your old plant perked up after the facelift and tummy tuck. You can look at all the instructions with pics at rachelsreflections.com, But - how good it was to be young... Irina