Thai gardeners have been taught the best way to water plants is by overhead sprinkling, usually by hand. Of course, African violets deplore this kind of attention, with the expected results-no flowers, crown rot, root rot, brown splotches on the leaves, and petiole rot.
            Interestingly enough, the standard size African violets were doing very poorly, while the miniatures were holding their own. Maybe the miniatures were re-planted at some point of time during the expo, but I  doubt it. Keep in mind, they were not doing great but looked much better than the standards.
            After writing the above paragraph I decided to go to the local outdoor market for an evening stroll and dinner. I always walk through the plant sales area to enjoy the orchids, the other tropical plants, and to look for an African violet. I could hardly believe it when I spotted three micro-mini African violets tucked away among all the other plants. There were no names on them but they were fairly healthy. Asking price for these little gems was 20 baht or about $0.75 each. I bought all three of them.
            The lady who owned the small garden center spoke very little English and my Thai is also very limited, but I managed to find out how she acquired the African violets. Her sister brought seed to Thailand from Sweden. The few plants she had were on display at her garden center. She told me Thai people showed no interest in them but the farang (foreigners) were ecstatic when they saw them.
            Trying to get them to flower will be a challenge as my condo windows are all on the north side, which means low light intensity is all that is available. Guess that means fluorescent lights if I can get them set up.

            A dozen Florist Gloxinias were for sale at the same shop. Obviously someone knows how to grow them. They all had 3 to 4 mature blossoms and there were 4 to 6 flower buds ready to open over the next couple of weeks. Asking price was 150 baht per plant or about $4.25.