Starting New Plants

The information provided here will make it possible for you to have more than one of your favorite plant or be able to give one to your friend. You can buy another plant from the place you got the first one or if you want to save a little money and you are willing to wait then try starting your own.

There are a couple of problems:

1. One is if the plant is patented then you can’t start new plants off of it at all.
   
2. Two if the plant is a Chimeras then you can only propagate the plant by crown
   division to get a plant that flowers the same(leaf cutting propagation sports almost
   100% of the time).
   
3. Three sometimes regular plants will have plantlets that sport which means that the
   flowers will not look like the flowers on the original plant. An example of this would
   be a plant that has a pink flowers with purple fantasy could sport and have flowers
   that are just pink. Sometimes I like the sport as much as the original.

Propagate By Leaf Cutting:

There is no single right way to propagate an African Violet. The most popular way to propagate African Violets is by leaf cuttings. The other way is crown division.To begin a leaf cutting, select a strong, medium sized leaf and cut the stem at a slant with the most cut area at the front of the leaf, about one inch to one and one-half inches from the leaf. Then you can prepare a rooting medium of either plain vermiculite or vermiculite mixed with perlite. An excellent "starter mix" is 4 measures of vermiculite, 1 measure of perlite and a half measure of charcoal. Then take a small container that is about 2 inches deep and put the starter mix in the container. Next take a pencil and make a hole in the mix close to the edge. Put the leaf in the hole with the slant toward the middle. Some people like to root the leaf in water. If you do this than add a little charcoal to the water to keep the water sweet. It will take several weeks for the leaf to root. It will be a little while after that before you start to see the plantlets. When the plantlets have four leafs of there own then you can separate them and put them in there own containers.

Divideing The Crown :

The second way is to divide the crown. To start you just leave the suckers or plantlets on the main plant until they have at least four of there own leaves. When they are ready separate them from the main plant with a sharp knife. Put them in the starter mix recommended above. This way does pose a little risk to the main plant because the spot on the main crown where the plantlet was attached is then exposed until it heals and could get a disease.

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