On a round mat on my kitchen table, surrounded by windows, is a little forest of African violets. One is maybe twenty years old, planted in an antique pot that I found on one of our road trips. Two are just a couple of years old, still in the dark green plastic pots from the nursery. In tiny antique pots are four: two that I grew from cuttings, and two that Linda grew. They're healthy and seem to love this room, where the light comes from three directions: south and north and west.
The baby plants are too young and too small to have bloomed yet. But once their greenhouse blooms faded away, none of the violets have ever bloomed again. Until this past weekend, when I spotted an edge of white peeking out from under a leaf.
In just a few days, two more sprigs of blooms opened up under the leaves, pushing out and into the light. Big, beautiful purple flowers, edged in white.
The only thing that's changed, is that I've started watering them through the top, so water flows down the cupped leaves and into the crown. I figure that's the way nature waters these plants, so maybe I should, too.
Oh how lovely!
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