African Violet Dividing and Repotting

A few days ago I got quite excited to see River's post about the October HiveGarden Journal and even though I don't have a garden, I still love the couple of plants that I do have.

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I've been wanting to repot my African Violet plant for a few weeks and today I got a gap to do it. African Violets are wonderful house plants that belong to the family Gesneriaceae and come in a variety of forms and colours from single to double flowers, flat or frilly, pink, purple and variegated with white flowers.

The propagate easily by vegetative reproduction and can be multiplied by rooting leaves in water creating a clone plant of the mother plant.

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I bought this plant about 6 months or so ago and I thought that it was a single plant, but as it grew larger, it developed into two distinctive plants growing back to back as can be seen in the photo below.

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I took my plants outside and found a rectangular planter that was large enough to house both of these plants in order for them to not be cramping each other's style.

Carefully I removed the plant from the original pot and then divided the plants along the center. Unfortunately I haven't been able to source African Violet potting soil, so I used conventional potting soil for the time being, I hope it won't damage my plants.

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I placed the two plants with their orientation facing forwards (towards the window where they will be living) and gently filled in the areas around the roots with soil. I may have to top this up a little bit once it's settled down as I know this potting soil compresses quite a lot after being watered.

There is a nursery close by that I should really visit and find another friend for these two. I only have a few houseplants here but would love to have more. They come in such a wide variety that I would really like to see if I can get some in each of the pinks and purples, but the frilly flowered ones are by far my favourites.

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I'd like to get them some African Violet fertilizer as they have a whole range of products just for these plants but I'll wait for them to settle down from the shock of repotting before I do it.

They are now happily back on their shelf in the living room and I'm hoping that they will enjoy having a bit more space instead of being conjoined twins.

Don't you just love the shade of green these leaves are? It's that colour that reminds me of the undergrowth in a forest. It's so soothing. What's your favourite houseplant? Feel free to tell me in the comments.