African Violet - From the Trash

I have a lovely little run-of-the-mill African violet on my kitchen windowsill that is about 8 years old. It has been blooming constantly for about 2 1/2 years now, and seems to be very happy.

But that is the boring part.

I work at a Zoo, and long ago when we had a hippo, our neighborhood Raley's supermarket was kind enough to save a bunch of produce for us to give to the hippo. It was all the outer leaves of lettuce, broken carrots, that sort of thing - all put into a huge bin. Once a day our ungulate keeper would drive over and dig out the best bits to bring back.

One day, I get a radio call from her, trying to figure out where I am. She comes over with something behind her back and tells me how she found something, and it's really not a very good gift, but if anyone can make it work, she thinks it's me. Then see pulls out this pitiful, half dead violet, in a small, ugly, scalloped-edged white pot. It had about 6 leaves on one side.

I smiled and said, "Great, a half-dead plant!".

I took it home and put it on the widowsill of our small little Davis apartment. Watered it ever now and then, and it grew a nice all-sided set of leaves. Two moves later, and I started to think I needed to repot it. But I was afraid. Violets are always talked about as fussy, so I didn't know if it would survive.

One day, I was ready. I had a terra cotta pot that was double the size of the original plastic one. I carefully transplanted it and it looked good. Until, I pressed down on the soil to make sure it was nice and packed - and something snapped!

Most of the root broke off, the only part left was what was sticking out of the soil. Crap, crap, crap!

I layered more soil around it, gently watered it, stuck it in the window and waited for it to die.

A couple of weeks later, it sprouted a nice little bunch of cute purple flowers and for years now - it just hasn't stopped blooming. It's so damned happy, and I tried to kill it. Goes to show you what I know.

My Zoo friend who gave it to me still can't believe I actually did it. Apparently, she only has some faith in me.