What fertilizer should I use?
A fertilizer is plant food that provides the nutrients
necessary for healthy growth. Because we use a soil-less planting mix for our plants, we
fertilize each time we water them. The soil-less mix is made up of peat,
sphagnum and perlite, but has no soil.
Special African violet plant foods exist in which case its easy just to follow the directions, and if you really want your plants to look their best, these are generally the best fertilizers. If you don’t have a special African violet mix you may like to use a common type of fertilizer you use on your other indoor plants, but remember that African violets are unusual in they have a low nutrient requirement so use it at half to quarter strength.
When growing violets, a balanced 20-20-20 fertilizer is often used until the plant is full grown, and you want to start it flowering. Switching to a 12-36-14 product should encourage flowering when the plant is fully grown or for show purposes. The higher middle number is the amount of phosphorus in the mixture.
When
we look at the numbers on the label of a fertilizer we usually see three
numbers, such as, 20-20-20, that are known as the NPK numbers.
The first number is the percentage of Nitrogen. It promotes leaf growth.
The second is the percentage of Phosphorus. It gives you the flowers on your plant.
And the third represents the percentage of Potassium. It
helps general plant health.
When a plant is just getting started, it should be given a fertilizer that makes the leaves grow strong. Blooms should be removed. Once the leaves are well established you can switch to a fertilizer with a high middle number to favour the flowers.