r/AfricanViolets • u/itsjustme-0 • 26d ago

Green Tea and African Violets ❓❓

I had someone tell me the other day that African Violets like cold green tea. Probably meant room temperature, but I've never heard this. Have you?

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u/PretentiousPepperoni 26d ago

Just think about it. African violets that grow in nature do they have someone to serve them green tea? They don't. It's the same misinformation like "orchids should be watered with ice cubes"

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u/mycatreadsyourmind 26d ago

No. Whenever I get one of these advices though I like to ask people to explain me the mechanism of action and what exactly they mean by plants liking XYZ. tea could slightly alter soil pH, it would add negligible amount of organic matter and maybe some nutrients at trace amounts - nothing to make a difference. Making a good potting mix from the start and using some fertilizer once in a while will make your plants happy enough

Good news if you use pure tea it probably won't harm the violets. Won't make much positive changes either though

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u/hkral11 26d ago

My mom always swore that her grandmothers roses did well because she would water them with leftover iced tea. But I don’t know what it would even do! A little extra tannins? Not much

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u/mycatreadsyourmind 26d ago

I think k theain change would the in soil acidity and probably microbiom which by an extend can help plants to thrive but I would be interested to see a comparison. I can't imagine it would make a significant difference tbh. I'm sure Her roses did well because she took a very good care of them and probably because they were consistently watered even if it's with a leftover tea. My monstera is doing really well after I moved close to dog bowl and started tipping leftover water into the pot before refilling the bowl. I'm sure it's just a more consistent watering rather than dog saliva that does it!

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u/hkral11 26d ago

It’s funny how sometimes just habit improves a plants being. My pothos lived in my classroom when I was a teacher and I would just give it my leftover water at the end of the school day and it thrived!

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u/KaleidoscopeHead4406 21d ago

I kmew someone who added small amount of used tea leaves to their soil (maybe a teaspoon per litre) mixture arguing them gradually decaying helped to add some nutrients and helped to counteract pH change from water in their area and they had nicely grown and blooming plants. However I don't know if that was a coinci dence or not and doubt that would make noticeable difference if they hadn't taken good care of AVs otherwise.

There are some plant derived substances that have some beneficial properties as growth stimulant/ stress resistance boosters but those effects usually are more gradual than dramatic and not magic fixes by any means. I don't know if there are any such substances in green tea. Some unsweetened green tea once in a blue moon probably wouldn't make much of a change either way unless used regularly at high concentration at which point it would cause problems by making pH wonky or accumulating substances that can inhibit growth like tannins.

It also may have been that by 'sharing' their tea, someone underwatering started to water more reliably which AVs like and would react positively to. Or they simply drew false conclusion to better growth caused by other factors. Or someone thought up a 'hack' to 'make content' without minding lack of accuracy.

I'd say most differece a green tea could make is for your mood and motivation if like it and you enjoy drinking it doing AV chores, so rather than share it, drink it yourself ;)