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Container Gardening

African violet growing flowers but not leaves!

Melochia Tomentosa

5 years ago

last modified: 5 years ago

Hi guys!

I seem to be having the opposite problem from most people with AVs. I'm getting nice regular blooming, but my plant has been very slow to replace the leaves I trimmed when I brought it home. How can I correct this?

This is my first AV. I'm not sure what cultivar it is, but it has warm lavender flowers and the inner leaves near the flower stems are speckled. I bought it from Home Depot about two weeks ago. I cut off leaves that were damaged (maybe as much as 1/3 of them), bare-rooted it and re-potted into 1-1-1 true gritty mix, and added it to my little patio garden (zone 10b).

It gets only indirect sun, but the light is supplemented by a big ol' CFL grow bulb (60W, 5500K) less than a foot overhead that is on for 9hrs/day.

I am watering it almost every day with 1/4tsp/gal Foliage Pro solution.

I also dead-head the spent flowers.

Will reducing the light or the fertilizer give the leaves an opportunity to catch up? I'm happy with the plant, (the flowers are larger and more numerous than they were when I bought it!) but I would love to see it looking a little more balanced.

Thanks!! :)

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Comments (2)

bragu_DSM 5
5 years ago
av's do not like wet feet. difficult, but not impossible with gritty mix. at some point, you might want to pinch the flowers, and allow the plant to rest. you might also consider taking a leaf to start a new plant. check with the folks on the AV forum. Listen to irena ….
Melochia Tomentosa
Original Author
5 years ago
Oh thank you bragu! I didn't relize there was an AV forum, I'll repost this there :0 I can switch my watering to eod if that's better. (I think I got the idea from a post by a woman with a beautiful blooming AV who said she watered every day with FP).
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Where there's green, there's hope! First, give it water right away. If your plant has lots of leaves, remove the outer row so the plant doesn't need to spend energy reviving old unnecessary growth. Second, your plant needs to be "groomed" (remove dead flowers and their stems back to the main crown, clean the leaves, etc.)and repotted. Clicking the link below brings you to a photo-illustrated potting lesson. Use a pot that is 1/3 of the plant's post-leaf removal diameter since overpotting can kill the plant or delay blooming. Use a mix of equal parts of peat, perlite, and vermiculite. You can also buy African Violet soil mixes, but they are about half peat, so you'll still need to add more perlite and vermiculite. The different ingredient shapes and textures leave air spaces in the mix and keep it from packing down so the roots can grow really well. I bet that in no time your plant will be "alive" again and showing its appreciation with new purple blooms. Here is a link that might be useful: Repotting a Violet
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It has been about a month... did you take any before and after pictures to see any differences? It's hard to see changes when something is growing fairly slowly and there are lots of leaves to notice. Here is my AV (i took a lot of leaf cuttings from it, so it's regrowing). The first pic was the day I put it under lights, and the second pic is 16 days later... yes, there has been a color change, I guess from the different kind of light. It used to be in a south-west facing window. I use the Schultz AV food you describe everytime I water. I think it ends up being about 3-4 drops in a standard size water bottle. I mix it up and have that bottle on hand anytime I need to water.
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