Yup, low light. Moving to a bright light created bleaching - everything should be done gradually, and a good light is significantly less than a direct sunlight. Your plant has suckers, they should be removed - you only need one crown. The soil looks good - but dry. What kind of fertilizer do you use? Leaves look not only stretched, they look pale - and it very probably means not enough nitrogen.

Your violet is healthy despite some culture issues - means - if you gradually adjust the conditions - it will thrive. Nothing dangerous. Just a little patience - nothing can be fixed overnight - but with some tweaking - you can see a gradual improvement in a couple of weeks.

Good Luck

Irina

Irina,

Thank you for your advice! It is so good to hear my African violet is not, in fact, dying or diseased.

When you say "gradually adjust conditions" what is a gradual time frame for doing that?

kailey

if you want to increase light - not direct light - but brighter than now - put it there for 30 min, then for 1 hour, next day for 1 hour 30 min - until it gets used to the place or find a lower light corner in your patio - and move towards the better light every so often. It need time to green up slowly. You can start fertilizing now if you didn't do it before. You didn't tell me what kind of fertilizer you use - so we can work on the amount.

I have never fertilized. However, I recently repotted it with an even mixture of vermiculite, miracle gro perlite and miracle gro peat moss. Is this sufficient or should I find an actual fertilizer? If so, what do you reccomend?

It looks like you had it somewhere dark, and then moved it out into direct sunlight and bleached the leaves. You need to find a spot that has bright indirect light. Once it has better light it should even out.

I recently bought Miracle Gro Flower Food (15-30-15) and just fed my African Violet's for the first time. Thank you for all of the suggestions! I've had this plant for a year now and I hope to keep it alive and flourishing.

Unfortunately, I do not have great light anywhere in my new home. I'm keeping it on a shaded patio.

I do have one last question though. I repotted it two months ago. Prior to this, it was in the plastic pot it came in and I watered it from the bottom (which I know is preferable). Is its current pot (shown in the picture above) okay? Or should I repot it again with a pot that I can water from the bottom (and if so, do you have any suggestions)?

This is what it looks like today. It's surviving, but it's sort of growing a neck. I know it has suckers but I don't feel confident pulling them out. I wouldn't even know how to distinguish suckers from new growth since most are originating from the crown.

You should repot again into a plasticpot with drain holes and set the plastic pot inside your decorative pot, when you do so, you can sink it down a bit and get rid of that neck. Before doing so, you should go on YouTube and see if you can find a video that helps demonstrate identifying and removing suckers. You have at least two crowns in there that I can see, which means that you could separate this thing into two or more plants. There should only be small leaves coming from the center of the plant. If you have small leaves coming from the side or underneath, that is likely a sucker. Suckers will have their own crown. Tiny ones can be pinched out, big ones can be cut off with a knife.

Here's a good one: http://youtu.be/PCKa8H9WmVE