How to Prune African Violets To Get Better Looking Plants

Introduction

This video demonstration shows you an easy way to prune your African Violets - step by step. Why prune? So your violets grow more evenly, produce bigger and better blooms, and foliage. Have the best looking violets on the block.

By: LittleRedHen

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Instructions

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Difficulty: Easy

Tips & Warnings:

Be careful to snap only the leaf, or flower stalk, you're holding in your hand. If you push very aggressively you may snap the leaf, or flowers next to it as well.
Rotate your plant every day or so about 1/4 turn to keep all parts receiving the same amount of sunlight. This will encourage leaves to grow evenly all around your violet.
African Violets make a great, living floral centerpiece! Just remember to put it back in the window after you're finished enjoying it so that it can keep growing more beautiful. Normal lamp-light isn't strong enough for permanent display as a centerpiece.
Although African Violets are non-toxic to most animals and humans, there is a chance that individuals may have allergies.
Supervise children when teaching them how to care for African Violets.

Step1

(Note: All steps are shown and narrated in the video.) First, look for wilted, brown, damaged, or mal-formed leaves. Removing these will cause the plant to send out replacements. Take the leaf in hand, placing your fingers around the base of the leaf (where it joins the base/stem of the plant) and push the leaf stem from side to side until it snaps off. If the leaf is wilty and refuses to snap you may need to pinch it off with your fingertips.

Step2

After you've removed the first leaf, continue by rotating the plant around to locate any additional un-attractive leaves. Snap off as needed.

Step3

When the entire flower stalk has finished blooming, simply push the stalk to the side, in the same way you pushed a leaf to snap it off. Flower stalks snap even easier than leaves. Be careful to look if there are any buds on the stalk before you snap it. Sometimes they're hard to see, until you look carefully. If there are buds, don't remove the whole stalk, skip to step 4 instead.

Step4

If only a few flowers have died on a flower stalk, you don't have to remove the entire stalk. Simply take your scissors and snip the flower off where it joins the stalk. If you don't have a scissors, or don't to use one, you can use your fingers to pinch off the flower instead. This is slightly more difficult if your fingers aren't tiny - because you have the chance of causing another flower to snap off inadvertently.