My OTHER Obsession

When I'm not playing taiko, or perhaps as a distraction from it, my other OCD hobby is growing and propagating African Violets. Seriously, if you added all the minutes that I spend just staring at my violet projects, they would add up to hours and hours. Watching plants grow isn't the most action-packed hobby one could have, but again, I have OCD.

The vast majority of my stock comes from the few plants I rescued from back home. These were all my mother's violets, and at first my goal was to try to keep them alive and healthy and happy. But then I started doing some research on the good old internet and I realized how easy they are to propagate and make new violets from. African violets (AV) are surprisingly hardy. In fact, I am discovering that they try very hard to cling to life and will thrive if you just give them the essentials: dirt, water and sun. You can grow violets from their leaves, or some will offer "suckers," which are baby plants that sprout out of the trunks of mama plants.


Yes, it's as simple as plucking a leaf and sticking it into some moist soil:
I've given my Mom's plants names to keep them straight. The plant above I call "Mom's Afro," since when I first repotted it, it grew giganto and large and full, and um, like an afro. I nearly killed it out of love, and though the mama plant is still thriving, the leaf I plucked from it and stuck in soil is still growing babies. It grew two sets of babies that I have since transplanted, and after I stuck the original leaf back in the dirt, it's growing more babies! Wow!

Here are the first set of two babies from Mom's Afro (the one in front and the one in back):

The two in the middle are called "suckers" which are plants that grow from the main stem. You just pluck them off and stick them in soil and hope for the best. I gave a plant to my friend but it kind of floundered in the low-light environment she had it in, so I re-adopted it and now it grows suckers like crazy. I repotted the thing and now it's a sucker-maker-mama-maniac! Look at the new suckers:

And here is another example of suckers. This one came off a beautiful variegated plant. Apparently plants with variegated blossoms are hard to propagate back into their variegated state. I'm hoping this sucker grows the variegated flowers, but eh, if it survives then that is victory:

But my saddest violet was the one that struggled the most. It's leaves were always curled, so I nicknamed it "Curly." Extensive research informed me that it probably had mites, which are really bad news for violets. I put it in AV intensive care, only to have the result be this:
Doesn't that just bring tears to your eyes? That is one dead plant if you ask me. But luckily before I transplanted it to the AV ICU I plucked a leaf and stuck it in soil, more as an afterthought than as anything to invest hope into. But now look!:Babies! There's twins or triplets growing there! I really hope they survive! Here is before and after:There are other stories too. If I can remember to bring my camera to work I will have beautiful flowering plants to show you and I could also tell you about the Miracle of Miracles that I rescued from the garbage can (literally). And if you have the stomach for it, I will have to show you the gnat eradication system. But that's for another entry.