Potting African Violet Suckers

In February, I had written a post about African Violet suckers and I thought it was time to update you on the progress.

The before picture shows the tiny suckers not looking like much. I must admit, I was not hopeful to see these little things survive but this experiment is just a testament to show that anything is worth trying. They were very easy to root. I mean simply easy.

After 3 months, this is what it looks like:

Follow these steps to root African Violet suckers:

What you'll need:

-Small pot

-Moist potting soil or seed starting mix

-African Violet suckers

-A large zipper bag

-1 Straw

1. Gently pry the suckers off the mother plant. You can use anything from a pencil eraser, popsicle stick, or an exacto knife (that's what I used). If you don't know what a sucker looks like, click here for a picture.

2. Put the moistened soil in a small pot. Insert the sucker into the dirt. Make sure there's ample contact between the base of the sucker and the dirt.

3. Put the pot inside the bag and if you need to, insert the straw in the dirt to prevent the bag from resting on top of the suckers. This is important since if the bag touches the suckers, the condensation from the bag will cause the suckers to rot. Put the pot under some bright lights and...

4. The hardest part of this process is: patience. It'll take a couple of weeks for it to take root and a couple more to show signs of leaf growth.

Results:

At two months and a couple of days, here's what the suckers should look like. At this time, you can take the bag off and keep them underneath some strong, indirect light.

After several more months, they should like like a new plant. The picture is of 75 days.

Propagating African Violet Suckers

A couple of days ago, I repotted the suckers from my African Violet I got from the Dollar Store almost 8 months ago. They stopped blooming and I kind of forgot about it until I noticed that it was overly crowded! After the suckers grow a little bit, they're much easier to handle. I popped them off with an xacto knife. The following picture is what I believe are suckers.

Here is a picture of the suckers that were removed and potted up in seed starting soil. I hope they root and make me more African Violets.

Here is my African Violet free from all the suckers.