African Violet Blooms

If you remember this post, for awhile I was worried I had inadvertently destroyed the budding capacity of my African violet by watering it from the top down and keeping it in lower lighting conditions.  However, this fall I have renewed hope that I have a green thumb after all!  Buds started sprouting up several weeks ago (which had happened back in the summer too, but they never bloomed).

It may be tough to see, but the foliage has filled in quite nicely from where I had removed some "propagation" leaves earlier in the year.  Of the four leaves I snipped and attempted to propagate, one remains and is perhaps on its last gasp.

Below you can see additional buds gearing up to bloom!

Below is an overhead shot, trying to show you the filled foliage.

The photo below doesn't do justice, but this purple bloom is like fluorescent and almost an iridescent color display.

If you were wondering what I mean by watering "top down" or "bottom up," typically you water a plant by pouring or sprinkling water over the soil.  The water trickles down through the soil and is absorbed by the roots, with any excess water draining out to a saucer, trough or collecting in a stone base layer.  Watering from the bottom up, you either set a terra-cotta pot housing your African violet in a second pot which has water in it, allowing the water to absorb through the terra-cotta into your soil and roots - OR - you do what I have done and doesn't require a specialty pot... you just pour water into the drainage trough and let it wick up into the roots.  When the soil is really dry, I'll come back and add water to the trough a second or third time.  Since it takes me awhile to make the rounds when watering all my plants, I can usually do this one first, and like 10th and then last - in other words, I don't pour, sit and wait and pour again.  This is not a bad watering strategy for other really thirsty plants.  Sometimes if a pot is totally dried out and you go to water it, the soil is too hard to absorb any water so it leaks right out into your trough (more than you expected which leads to crazy overflow and a mess).  So instead, if the plant is clearly mega dried out, I may water the trough first, let it absorb and on my second pass come in and water top-down.