Saturday, May 29, 2010

African violets

Every two months or so, my African violets put out a flush of colorful blooms.


I have been keeping them on my kitchen countertop where they can enjoy the morning sun through the east window.


The plants are quite picky about their growing medium, especially when they are being watered by wicks. I have to ask my friends from overseas to supply me with Perlite and Vermiculite just so I can make the mix they prefer.


When I first growing AVs, I was propagating like crazy. Eventually I ran out of space and had to pass around a number of plants. Unfortunately all the friends I gave the AVs to couldn't grow them because they couldn't provide the right growing conditions.


Maybe I'm the only person in the whole of Vietnam who can grow AVs to this success! I'm joking calling my AVs "lonesome flowers" as they seem to have no friends from the same species around here!

5 comments:

Larry said...

They are indeed lovely.. at one time I grew a great many, but then we started keeping the house on the quite cold side through the winters and they didn't appreciate it at all! Larry

Hà Xuân said...

My plants have never experienced lower temperature than 60oF so I don't know how cold they can tolerate. But one thing, they don't like hot weather, I tried to grow them in my Saigon home but they couldn't survived!
Thanks for visiting Larry. Have a nice weekend.

lynn'sgarden said...

Ha Xuan, what a beautiful rose arch in your header! I used to propagate AV like there's no tomorrow and ended up having too many to care for! Your collection is beautiful...I tend to love the deep, deep purples most but that white-edged foliage is WOW! Do you grow the teeny tiny miniature variety?

Hà Xuân said...

I have some miniature varieties too. I started them from the leaves I bought from Rainbow violets back in 2006.

Stephanie said...

Glad to know that you have friends who could help you get perlite and vermiculate. I'll be glad to send you some. Just send me your address to mygreenfinder at hotmail dot com ok.

Your AVs are so pretty! Love them! Looking at yours, makes me wanted to get one. But I hope AV can tolerate really bright light. My porch is really bright. It has been really good for glox but I am not sure about AV. Ok, maybe I should try one to confirm he he...