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Ok, so I wanted to show off the riot of blooms on African violet #11. The last time, only two flowers were open, and now there are many. But I was looking at this plant and realized it demonstrated an important point: clones of African violet plants can vary from the parent plant.

If you notice, one of the flowers is all purple. The marbling is caused by a genetic trick, whereby certain regulator genes move around. A clone of this plant from that flower would have all purple flowers, with none of the marbling. Even individual leaves that are grown into full plants may not display both purple and white flowers.

For any African violet that has marbling or edging on the flower, the multi-colored flowers may not continue in the cloned offspring. It's even theoretically possible to have a plant lose the dual colors as it grows, although that is rare. For growers, this means that cultivars need to be grown long enough to see how the flowers present.

I saw this miniature African violet yesterday while waiting for the pharmacist to fill the prescriptions the oral surgeon gave me. I put it in the car, not realizing how warm it would get. I thought I cooked it, but when I brought it home and sprayed it with water and soaked the roots, it perked up. Today I re-potted it and decided to photograph it. The flower is actually about 1.4 cm in width (a bit more than a half inch).

I've been waiting for this miniature African violet, Rob's Cool Fruit (no relation, but it does make me wonder if people named "Rob" tend to grow violets) to bloom, and finally it did. The pink is stronger in the flower bud than the actual flower, but it's still a very cool plant. This flower is a bit bigger — about 1.7 cm in width, or about 5/8ths of an inch.

Note: I used Scotts Potting Soil for African Violets to pot the newest African violet, the second "disaster" now that the stem has grown roots, and a couple clones. I love this potting soil, as it's not as hydrophobic and difficult to work with.

Yesterday, I was at Chapon's Greenhouse, looking for something to cheer Nancy up. You know that horrid cold I had and couldn't shake? Now she's got it, and I wanted to do something special for her…especially since she must have gotten the cold from me.

I got her a flat of pansies and a couple other plants that will look good now and can be planted outside later. I think she was happier with the Ricola Honey and Herb cough drops, Nyquil, and Hershey bar. Still, she appreciated the plants and has them sitting by her now.

While at Chapon's, I spotted this African violet in the back. The severe marbling on the interior leaves amazed me. The plant itself is not doing well, and I suspect the amount of chlorophyll those leaves lack has something to do with it. The very helpful people who worked there pointed out much nicer African violets. I bought this one. I have no idea what the flowers will look like, and this plant may not survive. But I'm going to transplant it into my last Oyama pot and see how it does. I like a challenge, and if it survives, it wll be a fascinating addition.

When I got my new Oyama African violet self-watering pots, I hurried to transplant as many of the African Violets into them that I could. I picked up one carefully, but the stem snapped off in my hand. Nothing was connected to the roots.

I examined the stem, and found that the African violet had grown in two sections. I cut the sections apart, stuck one in water and stuck the other in wet dirt. I trimmed leaves from both plant segments. Without roots, there were a limited number of leaves that basic osmosis could support, and so cutting down the number of leaves gave the plant the best chance to survive. I didn't trim off the flowers; that part of the plant can be a good source of cloning material, although to do so I would need to read up on that particular cloning technique. I tried to leave as many options open as possible. I also placed the best leave/stem combinations through aluminum foil into a glass of water. The leaves were regularly misted (African violets can absorb some water through the leaves), and the piece of the plant placed in the dirt was kept more moist than normal.

I labeled it "Disaster 1″ because the stem of the next plant I went to transplant was rotted, necessitating another emergency attempt to propagate the African violet.

This is the piece of the stem that I stuck in the damp soil. The plant is thriving. I'm surprised this worked as well as it did, but I'm not going to complain. This plant is doing amazingly well. At some point, when I feel the plant has developed a good root system, I will transplant it into an Oyama pot.

Here's the piece of the stem I put in water. You can see the roots growing in the water, and the flower stems I left on. I apparently won't need those flower stems, but I'm a bit reluctant to remove them just yet. I like to keep my options open, just in case. I'll let the roots grow a bit more and then place this plant in soil.

I didn't photograph the leaves, but they were stuck through the aluminum foil in a manner similar to this plant and have developed some roots — though not as well as this plant.

I've now got 6 versions of this African violet, and I'm wondering what to do with them all! I've thought of giving them to some friends in the area, once I have them growing well. African violets are much less delicate than they were when I was growing up and played with the plastic African violet plant at my Aunt Edna and Uncle Bob's house. Still, they can be delicate, and giving them as gifts can leave the recipient feeling guilty when the plant dies. My sister-in-law was actually annoyed with me when I gave her one. I gave it to her in an Oyama pot. The Oyama pot is two-pieced. The plant is placed in a special lid with some pearlite over the cup, and the cup is filled up to the fill line with water. That's all you have to do to keep the African violet watered properly. My sister-in-law's violet is still thriving, and I gave it to her about a decade ago. So if I'm giving away African violets, I guess I need to buy more of the Oyama pots to do it right!

This African violet will be open tomorrow. I got this picture to show the blooming process and just because the pattern is so cool.

The flower on the upper left has been blooming for a while. If you look closely, you can see that it's starting to wither.

I put a measuring tape up to it, to give you an idea about how large the flower is. Most African Violet flowers are only about an inch and a quarter in diameter at most. This mutation produces exceptional blooms!

Another African violet finished blooming today. This one is pink with that garnet-purple color edging it. The edge of the flower is somewhat crinkly.

The Irish Flirt (a semi-mini African violet) has been blooming for a while now. The center petal browns off quickly, but the rest of the flower blooms a long time. This is one of the older flowers, and as the flowers age, faint touches of pink appear. The pink is a little bit easier to see in real life, but if you look at about the 4 o'clock position halfway from the center, you should be able to see it in this photograph.

I think this shade of purple is my absolute favorite among my various African violets.

This marbled African violet leaves me with a problem. If I call the top one "purple," what do I call the non-white color on this? Someone didn't pay attention to those labels on his crayons, did he?