A few weeks ago I bought two plants of Streptocarpus. The delicate leaves and flowers have been badly beaten up from the boxed delivery, so I had no idea what to expect from the plants. A few weeks later the Cape primrose proved its reputation of an easy-care plant and my plants recovered wonderfully.
But, let’s start from the beginning.

Streptocarpus, an African native plant is a close cousin of our well-known African violets. Although they look a lot like primroses, they don’t belong to the Primula family.
Cape primroses are a great plant if you find African violets too difficult.

Caring for Streptocarpus is fairly easy. They like a lot of light, but not the scorching sun. Keep them near the window which doesn’t have direct summer sunlight, but still gets enough light. Water them regularly from March till October, then give the plant the chance to have a dormant phase when the watering should be done once the soil completely dries.
Feed the plants once in two or three weeks. Remove dead flowers to encourage new flowers.

During the winter plants don’t need as much light as during the summer, but they still need room temperatures, not lower than 5°C (40°F). Due to the very big chances of freezing, if exposed to cold air, move your plants from the window so that the outside cold doesn’t bite them.

Caring for the plants is also easy because there aren’t many problems that can happen with the plants. And problem identification is really simple:

*Drying of the leaves=plants doesn’t get enough water
*Brown or dead spots on leaves= too much scorching sun
*Huge oversized leaves= not enough light
*Rotting leaves= too much water

All these problems can be easily fixed by moving plants away from the sun or closer to the light, watering the plant more often, or watering less. In the case of the rotten leaves be sure to remove all the rotten leaves and trim down the leaves that are too close to the soil to give the plant a chance to breathe.
There can also be an issue with the browning of the leaves on top of the leaves. This is a perfectly normal condition in the autumn. In the winter some varieties have brown tips of the leaves(the base of the leaf stays green). Simply cut the brown part or remove the whole brown leaf.

Also if you are in a situation where your plant is banged up from transportation, falling on the floor, or animal playing just cut the damaged leaves off and remove all the flowers that are roughed up. Remove just the flower heads, not the whole flower stems if the stems are healthy and the plant will start flowering very soon again.

I’ve had to cut almost half of the leaves and most of the stems but they have started recovering and flowering again in less than 2 weeks.

Repotting of the plants should be done when the roots start showing out of the water holes. Don’t use a too big pot, one size bigger is just then enough.

Streptocarpus can easily be propagated. New plants can be grown from cuttings, seeds, or by dividing the old plants. The easiest way to propagate them is by leaves. The method is similar to the African violet propagation. Leaves can be placed in the water until they start growing roots and then transplanted to the pot, or cut many little pieces of leaves and place them in the pot with soil and cover with a bag until they start growing roots.

Growing by seeds could be tricky because waiting for seeds will make your plant stop flowering. If you want to grow it by seeds sow them in a pot without covering with soil. The seeds will germinate after 10-14 days but the growth of the plants will be slow.

If you want a plant that will flower almost throughout the year and demand less care than African violets then Streptocarpus is the plant for you.