My African Violet Doesn’t Like Its Big House

Ok! Here is a lesson that I have learned recently – Don’t try to save ourselves some work by planting our houseplant in a container too large, for we could damage or even kill our plants!

I have bought a little Ness Fantasy Gold (Saintpaulia) in October last year. Once after I brought my African violet home, I repotted the houseplant into a bigger container and watered it whenever the surface of the soil feels dry.

Yet, despite of my constant care, my African violet has never grown at all in this half a year! In fact, instead of growing bigger and stronger, my African violet is getting weaker, with discolored, yellowish leaves that, at some point, may droop and die young 🙁

After some researches online and getting advices from other gardeners, I have learned that the big container of my plant may be the root cause of this problem. Originally, I thought that a garden container too large wouldn’t hurt. Since I would need to repot my houseplant later anyways, I could just pot my African violet into a larger container now and save myself some work later. Wrong thinking!

Lesson Learned

Only now I have learned the importance of the size of garden containers. A container too big will lead to rotten roots. The extra soil in the big container will keep staying wet all the time, causing rotten roots in the plant.

I have just repotted my Ness Fantasy Gold into a smaller container – a much, much smaller one.

It is actually quite embarrassing when I put the two containers side-by-side, showing how silly I was using such an oversize container for my little African violet…

Hope my little African violet will survive. I am crossing my fingers now 🙂

Related Post:Why My African Violet Isn’t Growing Much?
I once guessed that it might be a problem of overwatering.  I got part of it right.  But I missed the key factor – the size of the garden container – the reason why the soil had been kept wet all the time.