More Baby Violets

Early last month I posted about the slow growth of this tiny violet baby:

The friend who had given me the original leaf this one grew from came to visit a couple of days later and presented me with more leaves from the same plant.

Today I checked on them and found that three of them have started growing new baby violets:

They might not be easy to see, but there are new little leaves growing on all but the one on the bottom right.

The tiny plant at the top of this post has also started growing, and now has twice as many leaves as it had back then.

I am going to have to find new homes for some of these violets.

Freckles!

The African violet bud I posted about last Thursday has opened:

and it is pink with purple freckles!

Violets on the Move

In November I posted that after 117 days one of the two remaining African violet leaves had started to grow a new tiny leaf. It grew until there were four tiny leaves, then the mother leaf died. The baby plant doesn't seem to have grown since then. Over the last week, after sitting in a pot for about 220 days, the remaining potential mother leaf also died (on the right):

The dead leaf had grown some roots, but there was never a sign of a new plant. I removed the tiny plant from this pot and found it has almost no roots, which is probably why it stopped growing once the parent leaf died. Here it is potted up in a wicking pot, which I hope will get it growing:

Here is my whole African violet collection on their new home with wheels:

This is a "drinks trolley" I bought from Kmart last week. The wheels will allow me to easily move the violets to different places in the house as the sun moves throughout the year. On the bottom shelf are all the other baby violets from the leaves I was given for my birthday last year. A lot of them need re-potting, too. On the top left you can see the violet I was given at the same time, which is really a much redder purple than the photo shows. It is covered in flowers and has many buds still coming. The two pots on the top left are the two crowns of the first violet I was given by Sue. Sue propagated them from one of her own violets, but wasn't sure which plant the leaf had come from. Soon we will know, because:

one of them has a bud getting ready to open!

Open Violets

Watching this African violet come into bloom has been the brightest part of the last week:

Although watching my mother defy medical science by seeming to get better and better once all medications were stopped, rather than sicker and sicker, has been strange. Last weekend we expected that by now we would be making her funeral arrangements, but she is very much still with us.

Indoor Flowers

This Bilbergia brom which has been inside for some months, has popped out a flower:

And the "lumps" growing under the leaves of my African violet are now definite buds:

Now I've noticed the same tiny lumps on another African violet:

I can't see it clearly even with my glasses on, as it is so small. But that tiny light dot in the middle looks like a bud forming on my first African violet, which Sue gave me last May.

Buds?

In May last year I was given this African violet which, as you can see, was flowering:

It suffered a bit of damage on a crowded train on the way home that day, losing a couple of leaves. I propagated new plants from those leaves, and gave one of the plant babies to Sue from Mother Patchwork. That baby plant is now flowering for Sue!

I haven't had any flowers on the original plant since those ones it had when I received it. The plant has grown well; it is now about 35cm across, and it looks very healthy:

But no flowers.

However, maybe, just maybe, it is finally thinking of flowering for me. These tiny protrusions are growing under the top ring of leaves:

Are they flower buds, African violet experts?

Patience Rewarded

Back in May a friend gave me leaves from several varieties of African violet. As previously reported, most of them have grown new plants, but these two are still just sitting here:

Or so I thought.

Yesterday Jeanette posted that a leaf she started at the same time had finally started to grow a new plant, hidden behind the leaf. So there was still hope for these two.

This morning I had a close look at mine, and look what I found under one of them:

A tiny leaf appearing! It has taken 177 days, but the wait has not been in vain.

Violet Babies

Ten propagated African violet babies, moved into Masrac wicking pots:

There is actually more than one baby growing in each of these, so some time when they have grown larger I will have to separate them.

The remaining leaves which have not yet successfully reproduced themselves have had a trim:

On Gardening Australia this week someone suggested that cutting the veins of leaves helps to persuade them to reproduce. They were talking about begonias, not African violets, but I thought maybe it was worth a try for these two leaves which haven't done anything in four and a half months.

Violet Babies

On 23rd May:

Today:

The right-hand tray is oriented the same way, but the one on the left is facing the opposite direction to what it was in the first photo. Thus the two enormous leaves at the top left are the two at the bottom left in the first photo (they've grown, as well as multiplied). The extra three leaves in the second photo are off a different plant and were planted the day after the rest.

So, fifteen weeks after planting, almost all the leaves have grown baby plants. In fact most have more than one baby. But no matter how much I stare at them, the leaves second from the bottom on the right (the pink flowered ones) have not yet done anything. Well, they haven't died, which is good, but they haven't reproduced either.

Another Leaf

This little leaf surprised me as I thought it was a piece of perlite:

But suddenly it became a bit green and hairy!

I have leaf cuttings from 6 different African violet plants, and after the appearance of this little leaf, there is only one variety still to show any sign of growth.

Greenery

This morning I found another of my African violet cuttings is developing leaves:

It is probably hard to see them, but there are two sets of leaves coming up from this one.

Here's how the two earlier ones I've posted about are going now:

Obvious leaves. The new one is in the second tray, and in fact later in the day I discovered leaves on another one in the second tray as well.

Back in January, inspired by Jo, I made some scrappy butterfly blocks. As I was clearing a bit of my cutting table today I found them again, and again inspired by Jo and what she did with her butterflies in May, I added some scrappy green pieces to tilt the butterflies so they aren't lined up:

The photo makes them look a bit dull. I think they are brighter in real life. There are not enough for a whole quilt, but I have an idea for an addition to them which I hope to get to soon.

A leaf?

A couple of days ago I noticed a tiny green bump appearing at the base of one of my African violet leaf cuttings. It is very hard to photograph, as the camera doesn't want to focus on it:

However, it seems to be a little larger each time I look at it, and now I'm sure it is a leaf developing. If so, it should get easier to photograph as it grows.

This leaf is the one at the bottom right of this photo from May:

One of the two with a dark red flower. The other from this plant has had a root appear above the surface, as have the two at the bottom left in this photo, so it seems at least 4 of them have taken. But the first leaf is pretty exciting!

Roots

Back in May, I was given a bunch of African violet leaf cuttings, which I popped in little pots:

The flowers were there just to remind me which were which until I could label them.

Since then they have been in an old (1970s) Decor defrosting container,

 sitting in the bay window so they get lots of light.

Ever since I have been inspecting them regularly for any signs of new leaves growing. I've read that leaves take 2 or 3 months to appear, so I'm being a bit optimistic. However look what I have just found:

It might be hard to see what that is, but there are tiny roots appearing above the surface of the potting mix on two of the leaves. Why are roots growing upwards? I don't know, but I hope that means there are more roots growing downwards as well. These leaves are both from the same plant, and in the top photo they are the two on the left, with a purple and white flower. There is no sign of growth on any of the other varieties yet, but these little roots have got me quite excited!

Violets Galore!

Today I went into Melbourne to meet up with my CBD quilting friends, and I was given this bag of goodies:

It included a pretty African violet, with dark purple flowers fringed with white. And inside that plastic container:

Leaf cuttings from five more African violets! Look at the range of colours. Just beautiful.

And here they all are later, potted in a mixture of vermiculite, perlite and African violet potting mix:

(Flowers just there for the photo to help me remember which is which.)

If these all take, that will be a lot of plants! I might need a few more African violet pots.

Pot Quest

Because the power supply company had advised us that our power would be off for a few hours today, we spent the day in Geelong. We met up with family members for lunch, and spent some time fossicking around Geelong's big second-hand stores. I was hunting for African violet pots.

I found nothing at all. But another member of the hunting party found this one:

The pot is in two parts. The outer part is fully glazed, so it holds water, but the inner part is only glazed around the top:

It might not be clear in my photo, but there is no drainage hole in the inner pot. You put water in the outer pot, and it slowly seeps through the unglazed pottery, providing the violet plant with a constant supply of water. It is a clever system, but unless you know what it is for it seems a bit of a mystery.

Violets and Voting and Falling

This morning I met up with Sue from Mother Patchwork, who lives some way west of here but was in Ballarat for the day. Last week I admired her African violets and she offered me leaf cuttings so I could grow my own. But instead today she gave me this:

Thank you, Sue!

Afterward I went to visit this place:

Sorry it's not very clear. There was non-stop traffic on this road and I had to snap the photo between vehicles. The empty shop across the road is not quite empty at the moment. The posters along the fence are the clue; it is a pre-poll voting centre for the federal election. There are various criteria for being eligible to vote early, but for me the most relevant one is that I live more than 8km from a polling place. Despite the busy-ness of this voting centre (apparently 6000 people voted here yesterday), voting was a fairly quick process as they had many staff and many booths available. There was almost no waiting. It was much faster than the last federal election where I had to queue (in the cold, and with no sausage sizzle) for about an hour.

Not long after I arrived home my father rang to tell me that Mum had fallen this morning (while I was enjoying a coffee with Sue) and had been taken to the Emergency Dept. So I drove back into Ballarat and spent the afternoon sitting with Mum while the staff did tests and took x-rays and decided there was no damage other than bruising. She was discharged just before dark, so was able to go home and sleep in her own bed. This was her second fall in a few days (the previous one was on Saturday). Each time I wonder how many more days we will spend in Emergency before they refuse to send her home and she has to go into full-time care.