African Violets My Way

In the most enjoyable place in my house, my home office-plant room, the windows are filled with African-violets. They are arranged in a decorative manner and are on view all the time. My way is to have African-violets right in front of me most of the time.

Though it is only 11 by 13 feet and has a northeast exposure, my plant room has the look of a little greenhouse and serves almost the same purpose. I enjoy it and so also do visitors who, I notice, always glance appreciatively at my plants.

I sympathize with plant collectors who grow a tremendous number of varieties, which they place in every available window and later, as a last resort, take to the downstairs game room, where their hobby need know no bounds. But there is such a thing, I believe, as having too many plants. Multiplicity and multitasking can become a curse; African-violets are just too lovely to hide or jam together for the sake of having a lot.

Last winter I set up new window gardens in a room decorated particularly for my African-violets. As a background I chose a wallpaper of white blocks set off by a vine pattern. Botanically, the paper is incorrect, for the vine has wisteria leaves and trumpet-vine flowers that are purple. However, it suits my African-violets to a “T”, picking up their glowing blue and purple tones and thus enhancing their beauty - as if that were indeed necessary. The rug is soft leaf-green.

The room originally had only two windows, but recently I had two more put in, one on either side of the single east window. Here I have a 12-inch shelf 10 feet long that holds three galvanized iron pebble trays, each 10-1/2 inches wide, 34 inches long and 1 inch deep. Below, at the sides of the shelf, are cabinets to hold my files of plant magazines, nursery catalogs and also the inevitable African-violet supplies.

The two side windows in the set of three are fitted with glass shelves (the center window is kept unobstructed so I can see out). The lowest shelf, extending only halfway across the window, is 16 inches long; it hangs 14 inches above the trays, thereby leaving ample room for the plants below. The middle shelf, extending from the latch strip, is 31 inches long as is the third shelf also. The shelves vary in width, the lowest being 6 inches, the middle one 8 inches and the top one only 5 inches.

At one side of the windows hangs a great pink pot of exuberant grape-ivy. On the other side is a three-sectioned, cast-iron bracket, which once held oil lamps but now holds three of my pet trailing African-violets. I do delight in these rangy varieties descended from Saintpaulia grotei, but they need room to wander.

At the end of the room a north window, which is brightened by light reflected from a white garage wall, holds three more glass shelves. Also, at the window level there is a white, double-decker, wire plant stand mounted on casters. It is easy to roll the stand to sunnier quarters when very dark winter days become too frequent. The plant stand is fitted also with pebble trays, which I fill with water. In this small room the atmosphere is being constantly humidified by the evaporation of water which just barely covers the stones in the trays.

In my plant room there are neither curtains nor draperies, the African-violets being embroidery enough; and the windows do not look bare. In summer the big window has an awning, which I raise and lower as often as the strength of the eastern sun dictates. At the north window no shading is required; usually in the summer I move the plants from the shelves to a big stand on the porch, where they can be enjoyed by everybody.

Incidentally, I find that it is not necessary to remove the shelves in summer. Enough ventilation is provided by the north window, which can be opened a little without breaking the glass shelves, and the unobstructed center window.

The plants for my window garden had to be shipped in December, for the room wasn’t ready until then. However, the precautions taken by my good plant growing friends, resulted in the safe arrival of every one. It took me fifteen minutes to unwrap each plant. While I was thus happily engaged, the painter came into the kitchen. Like everyone else, he had his two cents’ worth to put in and, seeing the plants that I was unpacking, said, “Lady, you’ve got to be a doctor to grow those things!”

You don’t have to be a doctor to grow African-violets, of course. It is a help though, to know about their brand of preventive medicine. Given proper con-ditions… and they are very definite con-ditions, let’s admit it - saintpaulias won’t require doctoring. However, they, more than other house plants, are dependent on regular care. And when they aren’t comfortable, African-violets will start to sulk sooner and do it more obviously than any plants I’ve ever known.

Before the window was put up on the north side, the plants complained vociferously of the cold. In January they complained loudly of the poor light, showing their indignation by elongating their leaf stems. Having no fluorescent fixtures in my little “growing” room, I had to make do with a lamp fitted with a 150-watt bulb. I turned this on for six hours a day (starting from 4 P.M. on the darker days), letting the light fall directly on the plant stand. This supplementary light helped some, but not as much as did moving the stand to a brighter, southern window in the living room.

At a north window, if there’s not full light, a little winter sunshine and warmth to 72°, your African-violets and, for that matter, any other plants are not going to have a lot of flowers. But if a northern exposure is what you have, use it, adding to it a fluorescent light if you wish, to see your plants through the dark days.

by Evelyn Pelt

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