Annah and I are now back from our vacation and we have both been busy continuing to move stuff to our new house as well as getting caught up at work. This post has been in the works for a while since the Adromischus cristatus has taken several months to fully flower. Enjoy!



The Adromischus cristatus that Annah and I purchased back in May (see "100 Houseplants" post) has been slowly preparing for a bloom in the past three months and has finally decided that it is time to bloom. The flowers Adromischus cristatus flowers are truly something to behold since they are unlike any other flower that we currently have.

(The two pictures above which I the tried to get a picture of the entire Adromischus cristatus plant are not the greatest, but I hope you are able to get the general idea of what the plant looks like as a whole.)
Ever since bringing this plant home it has been growing next to a window that receives maybe 8-10 hours of sunlight combined with 12-14 hours of fluorescent light per day. It has been watered probably once every 7-10 days since buying it and is so far still in the plastic pot that it was purchased in with the excess water draining into a coffee cup which it sits in. (I have yet to purchase an actual plastic plant tray for the plant, but letting the water drain into this coffee cup seems to work well.)

The Lithops leslie 'albinica', which grows right next to the Adromischus cristatus has so far not really done anything, for better or worse, so I will continue to give it the same care that I've been giving it and see what happens.

It is probably time to head to one of the big plant stores in the Twin Cities to purchase some more plants in the Crassulaceae family since they are fun plants which are also easy to take care of!



In other houseplant news, the African Violet plant (above) that was flowering in a previous post is still flowering beautifully and more flower buds are getting ready to bloom. The other African violets are growing right next to this flowering plant but none of them have flowered recently, so I'm not exactly sure why they are not blooming since they are receiving the exact same care. We'll just have to wait and see, I guess!

There was a period of time after I purchased my African Violets that the flowers died back and I had four plants with no flowers. However, after transferring them to African Violet pots and after adding fertilizer to each plant's water, two of the four have now produced some beautiful flowers. Hopefully the two other African Violets will be blooming shortly. The two I have blooming are a pinkish and white African Violet and a dark purple one. The other two are a darker pink and white colored one.

The growing conditions for these plants is currently a little indoor greenhouse (similar to this one) and growing them in there seems to keep the humidity up and provide the conditions which they like.

Enjoy the photos below!

(Our newest addition to our plant collection...)
We picked up this beautiful little African Violet on Wednesday night when we stopped by Home Depot. The temperature outside was about -10 degrees so we didn't really want to buy any plants, but we found this plant and couldn't resist it! I kept it inside my coat as we hurried to the car and luckily the car was still nice and warm from when we had used it before. There does not appear to be any damage to the plant and we are glad to have it as a new addition to our African Violet collection! The picture above shows the flower as being more pinkish in color, but during the day it looks mostly white.

Photo Credit: Me

(Variegated Pink African Violet)
Annah and I purchased this beautiful variegated pink Saintpaulia ionantha ("African Violet") at a store up in the Twin Cities called Linder's Garden Center for a couple of dollars. Calling it a Saintpaulia ionantha in this post is most likely incorrect, but the label on the pot said "Saintpaulia hybrida" and I have been unable to find anything specifically on that. Anyway, I had been looking for this plant ever since I saw this post post on the blog Plantsarethestrangestpeople, which is one of our favorite blogs. I also saw this post on another favorite blog which is called Damn Plants, which also made me want to be able to get my hands on one of these plants. The pictures in each blog have leaves with more variegation on them than the one we purchased, since the variegation is mainly just on the center leaves, but it is still quite beautiful and surely won't be the last variegated African Violet we purchase.

(A little bit closer view...)
This is my first African Violet but Annah owns one that she nursed back to health a plant that never bloomed and was rather boring into a plant that is very healthy and vigorously blooming plant.

(Even closer...)
Caring for an African Violet is pretty easy. Usually a North or East facing window is best for getting a healthy plant that blooms, but placing them under fluorescent growing lights will also result in healthy plants. I currently have mine placed under growing lights and will hopefully be able to maintain the current beauty of the plant. Temperature should be in the 70s during the day but should not fall below 60 degrees at night. These plants like a little bit of humidity to stay healthy. Also, these plants should never dry out completely and an adequate soil moistness should always be maintained for this plant.

Hopefully our African Violet collection can begin to grow now that we know of a good place to purchase them.

Reference: http://www.hort.purdue.edu/ext/HO-10.pdf
Photo Credits: Me