beauty forthcoming

The African Violets are so close to blooming! I had forgotten which was which, but now can see from the buds that the smooth-leaved one will have purple flowers

and the one with slightly ruffled edges will be pink. This one is a bit further behind with its bud development.

I've known that the stems can sometimes get damaged from leaning on the pot edge; I remember reading a recommendation once that you grease the edge of clay pots with vaseline to avoid this. I forgot about it until I found one of the violet stems here has a convex chunk of tissue missing; I'm assuming this is from leaning on the sharp edge of the plastic planter.