Irina, thanks for the helpful input. Unfortunately, I did use all the seed from the one pod that I had. :-( I planted it in two different containers. I will follow your advice and weed out the liverwort (what an awful sounding name for a plant! lol), leaving the containers under the lights for a while longer and hope for the best! As soon as Firebird blooms again, I will try pollinating a couple of its flowers once more, too. And next time I will certainly nuke the seed starting mix before sowing. Another question: how close to the lights should the seed be placed? One guide that I read said place them at the same level as my other violets. Another said to place them 6 inches below the lights. Any outdoor seed that I start inside, I place just 2 inches below the lights. What would y'all advise? :-)

That is a great idea! Except it may survive pets and kids better than my husband! That man can't come around a corner without tripping on invisible lint! I have a long thin table that my plants are set on. He can't walk past the length of it without dragging something off of it! And NO their leaves don't hang over any part of the table. It is just him! I laugh every time it happens. (Then I cry as I pick up my plant) Last night he walked into the living room (the entrance is 4 ft. wide!) and cut the corner so close he almost took out my pothos growing in a 16in pot up against the wall way out of his way! Gotta love him!--Rosie

I don't use those pots. Oh, I've looked at them, they are cute, but I am too cheap ;-p couldn't buy one for each and every of my way too many plants.... The 'problem' is likely not your pot, but the potting medium you are using. If you search this forum, or google, for 'wick watering', you will probably find a lot of different soil recipes. When I wick water, I use about 2/3 perlite to 1/3 commercial African violet (or seedling) mix. "Nice and fluffy" is the motto here. Coarse perlite is worth getting. I just discovered the promix perlite and it's a better grade than fafard or miracle gro, which I used before. Other recipes include 1/2 perlite, 1/4 vermiculite, 1/4 peat (which I usually use av mix for), plus some "interesting" additives such as lime, molasses, egg shells, worm castings, bat guano etc. - read up in what they do, decide for yourself. I've started using a bit of lime, especially with plants I don't repot as often as I should. The other stuff, well, I am sure the people who use them believe in it.... For a self watering pot, you want to be careful to find perlite and soil that don't have fertilizers added. The constant moisture plays havoc with time release capsules, so quite often it all gets released at once and builds up as a crust on top of the soil. Or even kills the plant. For more general advice on growing African violets, read through this forum, look up "Rachel's reflections" and also check out the "all about African violets" podcasts. The latter actually includes a project where she starts a grocery store African violet in one of those self watering pots, and observes how it does... Good luck! Karin

It can take a few weeks to a month, I've experienced ...