Pompom, If there is life in it - there is hope. Cut the roots and the stem up to the healthy tissue. Remove almost all leaves - leave just a row or 2 of small ones and put it in your pill bottle with water without fertilizer and hope for the best. If some of the leaves you will be removing are still healthy - cut them off at an inch from the leaf blade and do the same. When the small roots will start showing - you can plant them into the light soil (1;1;1 peat perlite vermiculite) and bag them. If your violet expired - do not get too upset - there are so many beautiful varieties of AVs in the world - you will try with something else. It is the only way to learn - and even the most experienced growers lose some plants from time to time. If you know the variety you like so much - you can get another starter or leaf. Good luck Irina

1. Choose a healthy leaf from the second or third row of your African violet plant. 2. Cut stem at a 45-degree angle and place in damp potting soil. Leaves placed in water or vermiculite will make water roots or vermiculite roots and will take longer to adjust to soil. 3. Cut off top third of the leaf. Place with name tag if available. Put plastic sack over pot for a week or so. 4. Place pot in indirect light from a window or under florescent lights. 5. Babies should start growing within 4-6 weeks. When babies are about two inches tall, or have at least four leaves per plantlet, separate and put each into individual pots. Place plastic on these for about a week. Join us on the African Violets forum.

I love to share Leon. And I have shared back plants also. And thanks for offering me the Alchemy Bells! Hope we can make that work! I can't believe in this entire county there are NO people that are interested in violets! I almost have to rely on this group exclusively to "share". Otherwise I would be over run with violet children! I would be one huge violet orphanage! Sorry,,just can't toss them! Rosie

I frankly do no know if our methods are better than theirs or theirs are better because we do not have this Klasmann soil mix here to compare. And I am doubt that their blossoms of the same varieties are bigger then ours. I am sure they fertilize after the initial preload is exhausted. I do not think that top watering is good, bottom watering is better because it doesn't compact the soil. Seems that Klassman is a good breathable soil, it probably has better overall ingredients than Promix BX a lot of growers use here. It seems to me that it all depends on the skill of the grower - same here - same there. Fialki.ru have a lot of top growers in the membership - but they also have newbies and so-so growers - like any other group. There is no magic soil and magic fertilizer that is going to make them bloom like no tomorrow. It is more about providing optimal conditions in your house, adjusting them when necessary - and regular repotting. Basically consistent care. It is all doable and you can grow the same varieties with a same size blossoms here. You go to an AV show - and some of the plants are so beautiful, so well grown - it just takes your breath away. At the National AVSA show - they will have hundreds of top level plants - at the AV Council - dozens. At the club show - you never know - sometimes great plants, sometimes mediocre. Plenty of Russian varieties lately. It is a hobby - and each hobbyist invests as much time and resources for his hobby as he or she is comfortable with. Some put lights, buy thousands of dollars worth of shelving from Indoor Growing Supply, purchase an expensive RO water filtration system and strive to be winners of anything and everything. And some grow 10 plants on the windowsills and are perfectly happy watching them grow and bloom. The quality of the plants naturally is not comparable - serious growers produce top plants, window growers often have nothing but dawgs. But they probably have more fun... less obsession, more enjoyment. I talk too much... I.