African Violets

September 16, 2010

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My Sinningia is Blooming!

Inspired by a tour of Erika’s unusual houseplants, I bought myself a Sinningia. I purchased it for 2 bucks at the spring Toronto African Violet Society sale, which happened to be taking place at the Toronto Botanical Gardens at the same time as the Ontario Rock Garden Society annual sale, which I was helping out with. This is all by chance, as I am not a member of either group.

But I digress (again). The Sinningia I bought is called ‘Kevin Garnett’. At the time, I had no idea what I was getting, nor a choice for that matter — I was just happy to find one at all, and so cheaply, too. Given a choice, I would have selected a plant that produces a much simpler, red flower. Regardless, I’m happy with this one, despite the fact that it’s not really to my taste. The novelty of keeping it alive and making it bloom hasn’t worn out yet.

At home, I repotted the plant up in a little terracotta pot and placed it alongside my other African Violet Family plants. I used African Violet soil and planted it shallow, exposing the caudex like Erika’s. Mine did not come that way, but I prefer the look.

It is still early days in my Sinningia growing experience and I am not well-read on the subject. To be honest, I’m kind of winging it, going on instinct more than anything else. Whether or not exposing the caudex is good or bad for the plant is beyond me; however, months later and ta-da, my plant is blooming. I must be doing something right.

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April 13, 2010

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Episcia (Dominica)

One of the things I brought back with me from our month-long Caribbean trip (did that really happen?) was a renewed enthusiasm for some of the tropicals we grow here at home as houseplants and annuals. Seeing them in their natural habitat provided new, helpful insights into their growth habits and needs, and an appreciation for what they are capable of.

I returned home eager to grow cosmos again, with a respect for caladium (although I will never grow them), and a wish to expand beyond African violets and into growing other Gesneriads (African violet family plants).

The first gesneriad that caught my interest was the episcia shown above. I spotted it growing out of a wall at Papillote Gardens in Dominica. I recently acquired a little cutting of a different episcia and boy do I wish I could grow it in the crack of an old wall like this one. But alas, while our summers are sometimes hot and steamy like the tropics, the rest of the year is not. Mine will be living life in a pot.

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February 10, 2010

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Sinningia iarae

I showed a photo of this plant when the leaves are fully emerged in the post about Erika’s unusual house plants.

This is what it looks like when the tuber is just beginning to come out of dormancy. At this stage the plant brings to mind a flattened potato crossed with an African violet that has exceptionally soft and velvety leaves.

Here’s a photo of a flower that had just fallen from the larger plant:

If you’d like to learn more, I’ve found this page to be very helpful. It includes photos of other Sinningias in their native habitat in Brazil, which goes a long way to explaining the kind of growing conditions it prefers.

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February 1, 2010

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Garden Tour: Erika’s Small Apartment of Small Plants

Yesterday afternoon I was invited into the apartment of a fellow Parkdale resident to check out her collection of fascinating and unusual plants. The visit brought the plant junky in me out in full force. I went home conspiring to get my hands on a few of those amazing plants myself and then spent the remainder of the afternoon rearranging and caring for the gazillions of houseplants I do have. Visits to other peoples’ gardens never fail to motivate me to do better by my own plants.

Mesembs in the front window.

Erika collects alpines, Mesembs (conophytum & lithops aka living stones are examples), Gesneriads (not African violets), orchids, and euphorbias. Looking back on our conversation, I’m not completely certain that she is exclusive to those plant families. Most of her collection just seems to fall within those categories. When I asked her what inspired her collection, she replied that she has always loved diminutive plants. The perfect-sized plants for an apartment dweller.

Conophytums are a South African plant that consist of two fused leaves. That’s pretty much it. They’re some of the most simplified and reduced plants I have ever seen.

They kind of look like doughy buns. Or really cute anatomical models of the cervix. Apologies for putting that image into your head, but frankly, that’s what I see when I look at one.

Conophytum bergerii (red) and Conophytum ratum (green).

Say what? These freakish things remind me of jelly candies or those stinky jelly air fresheners everyone had in their bathrooms in the late 70s. When I was a kid, I could never help opening up the plastic cover and poking them. I REALLY wanted to poke these too but that would have been very rude. The flower (yes they do flower) comes up between the two “leaves.” I can barely distinguish where that is on the red one.

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April 15, 2009

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African Violet Flower ‘Yvonne Decelles’

I’m a bit of a closet African violet fan. More than any other plant, African violets seem to have a demographic, and I am very much not it. My interest began with the success I had with a couple of plants while living in a dorm room in my first year of university. I already had the plants and didn’t think much of them until I discovered that they loved the hot and humid environment in my room. From that point on I have always had at least one. I currently have six, which is all the space I can afford to dedicate to them.

If I had more space you can bet I’d have lots more. I’m addicted to the variegated varieties with frilly leaves. I can’t resist the African Violet Society tables at events like the CNE. The society sells leaf cuttings of all sorts of interesting varieties for easy propagation — only 2 bucks a pop. All but one of my current plants were acquired in this way. These days I just repeat the mantra, “Walk away, don’t even look at those cuttings.” and buy another bulb I don’t have space to plant at the bulb booth instead.

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