Increasing the light will help. Also, how wet are you keeping them? They like an airy soil.

How long ago did you repot them?

The link below is to a helpful article about how to make violets bloom from the July/August 1992 African Violet Magazine.

Usually African Violets are very happy to be repotted. Another thought in addition to what the previous posters mentioned is if you cut off a large part of the rootball or decapitated your plants, did you also remove leaves? If a lot or all of the roots are gone, the plant can't support all of the leaves it had and some will be sacrificed by the plant. You may need to remove more leaves and re-sink the plants.

Good luck.

Here is a link that might be useful: Secrets to Blooming

If I do much cutting away on my violets or the root system, I always put them in a clear plastic bag or under a clear dome such as the kind you get a store-bought cake in. It helps provide them humidity and moisture until the plant has a chance to make new roots and rebound from the "surgery". It's like its own little ICU. :)
Loretta

Hi, Kathyrine:

Photos would really help. In lieu of them, here are the questions I always ask and the answers I give if they are affirmative:

1. Did you repot back into the same pots or go up one or two sizes? IMO, overpotting is one of the biggest killers of any plant. With AVs, it is best to stay with the same size pot (or even go down a size). If you went up (especially if you root-pruned), there may not be enough of a root system to absorb the water and the plant drowns. Most recommend 4" as the biggest you should use. The largest pot I use is a 5" Oyama Planter but that's only for my Apache and Wrangler's hybrids which get huge. All my others are in 4" or smaller pots.

2. Are your AVs in straight AV soil? If so, buy perlite (coarse is best but any will "do") and make your mix at least 3 parts perlite to 1 part soil. As Tommy said, they like airy soil. And this mix dries faster and helps prevent rot that straight, heavy AV soild can cause.

IMO, if you feel the plants are dying, then remove from current pots, uses the 3:1 mix and do as Loretta said and put in a dome. Just make sure the soil is damp and not wet; I learned the hard way how easy it is to rot any plant you put under a dome if the soil is too wet. I, personally, never remove leaves even when I take off over half a root ball. I haven't had a necky plant in years but when restarting them for friends I leave leaves intact. I've not had any problems.

However, cutting leaves is a good idea as you can put them down in damp, straight perlite and put under domes. That way, even if your others don't make it you will have their babies.

Cut the stems in an angle. And make sure the cut is to the front of the leaf; that way the babies will spout in front instead of behind the mother leaf. That's another thing I learned the hard way.

Good luck,

Linda

I put two for my Violets in bigger pots because they clearly had over grown their smaller pots. I am aware that violets like to be root bound so I try to keep them in as small pots as possible. My violets are also ket in miracle grows african violets soil. I use the wicking system by puting a piece of yarn through the bottom into a covered container. I did just recently move and the window they are in is not as bright as the one they had before. Since this post my two worst violets I was worried about did die. I looked at their main root core and it was rotten all the way through and was very wet. But their soil was not wet. My other violets are doing better considering the shock they have been through but a couple has tried to sprout flowers and they just did before their stem gets any bigger then about a .5 inch or so.

Thank you guys

OK - the main culprit is that you use miracle grow violet soil - you need to add at least 1/2 of perlite to it to let the roots breath better - especially if you wick. Miracle Grow soil is mostly peat - and it can get heavy and dense if wet.

If you see that your violets are wilting - do not wait them to rot and die, get them out, trim the rotten part of the stem, remove big leaves - and stick in small pot with fresh light soil again and keep them covered. They will grow new roots in no time.

Whatever survived - you eventually need to repot in a lighter soil - but right now let them recover and make sure that the soil is never wet but barely moist.

Good Luck and do not worry - your violets will recover. If something is not doing that well - put a leaf down. I really prefer to root them in soil - but you can do it in water too.

Irina