To create miniatures and semiminiatures - the hybrudizers of yesteryear crossed standard AVs with miniature Saintpaulia trailers - Saintpaulia mangungensis minima is one of them. SO - the gene for branching is already there - no matter what you do - it will be surfacing every so often. By the way - if AV is stressed - it starts OMG I need to propagate - I am about to die - cycle. And I think there is a lot of ways to stress it... USPS would stress me for sure.

So - the fact of life- your Cool Fruit throws suckers. Since you love this variety - I would recommend to remove and root biggest suckers - some small blade Xacto knife does it nicely without damaging the mama. WIth practice of course.. surgeons practice a lot before cutting us open.

If you can root a leaf - you can root a sucker - but the sucker will become a young plant and go into bloom much faster.

The rest of them - scrape off the plant as soon as they come out. Tweezers = "forceps" are my tool of choice. But everybody has their own tricks.

There is a hope that if you pluck all the suckers out, repot on a schedule, water as needed.. eventually the plant settles and suckers less. Just do not say U S P S anywhere near...

Thanks Irina. We'll see what happens.

Irina, this is the best and most complete explanation I have ever seen on trailing and suckers. I will keep this handy. Joanne

;-)) thank you