Removing Suckers the idea for the contents of this page I tribute to Kreth Saxon Thank you Kreth! Please everyone... keep those questions and requests for information coming in.... and I will do what I can to help and inform you.
We are going to remove a couple of suckers from Lady Baltimore in this project. Suckers usually develop in the first year on a violet, tending to warp the parent if let grow on. They should be removed so the parent plant can get on to the business of developing symmetrically and put on a show in the form of blossoms. These are sources for more plantlets of your favourite variety!
Suckers develop in the crease where the leaf meets the stem.	Lady Baltimore has two good sized suckers now  and a few more developing.
Use a sharp knife to carefully cut the sucker away from the mother plant.	Here is all the extra baggage this poor lady was carrying, and trying to feed.
Notice she almost thankfully spreads out so where the sucker was removed is visible only by the cut. She now can put all her energy into herself, for growing and in blooming.  She now needs to be re-potted and it would be a good idea to work some of the soil off  the bottom of the root ball so she can sit right down into her pot to allow her lower leaves to become almost level with the pot rim. Unlike other houseplants african violets will tolerate and benefit from adding soil on top of the root ball to cover her naked stem to where the new soil level should be. I scrape the stem and dust rooting hormone lightly over the scraped surface with an artist paint brush.
Now you have two suckers to pot up as explained here and 2 leaves as explained here.
Please look again at the two bottom pictures ... you will notice an almost white variegated leaf I would toss this one in the garbage. It is out of place on Lady Baltimore for the sake of symmetry, and too much white in the leaf to reproduce well. When you choose leaves to start on any variegated plant the leaf with the most green in it is the more dependable one.
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