I received my first online order of violets from Petals and Leaves on October 15th of 2021. Of course, I was excited, but since I was alone in the house at the time I had no one to share my immediate excitement with.
So I did the next best thing. I grabbed my phone and recorded myself opening up the box and discovering what was inside; my first named violets, Jersey Snowflakes and Rob’s Vanilla Trail. I did a couple of quick edits and shared the video with my African violet Facebook group:
Since then I’ve made it a habit of recording an unboxing video for each of my online shipments. If you’re just starting to order African violets online, seeing how different growers pack their orders may give you a good idea of what good and safe packing looks like.
I finally created a Youtube channel so I could post all of my unboxing videos without spamming all of the poor folks in the Facebook AV group. 😂
All of the unboxing videos from my fall shipments have been updated. You can check them out below:
My name is Nicolette Tallmadge…and I’m addicted to African violets.
Before now, I’ve never been much of a plant person….aside from an orchid in our kitchen that managed to cling to life, and even bloomed despite the fact that I often forgot to water it.
That all changed on May 9, 2021. Mother’s Day. That day I went to Lowe’s in search of a peace lily. My mother had been taking care of my uncle’s peace lily ever since he passed away in 2019. Unfortunately, it had recently shriveled up from what I now know was root rot. So I had decided to get her a brand new one for Mother’s Day.
I located one, and on the way to the checkout, I spotted a small display of African violets. While I had never really kept plants before, as a child I was familiar with the ones that my grandmother had kept. African violets had been one of her favorites. On a whim, I decided to get two for myself in honor of her. Though I felt sorry for the poor plants that suddenly found themselves in my care.
I named the two violets Rosa and Lee, after my grandmother, and kept them in a not-so-sunny part of the kitchen (next to our poor neglected orchid). After a few weeks, the mass of pink and purple flowers dried up and dropped off. A couple of weeks more, the leaves began to grow faded and limp. Wisely, I moved the plants to a sunnier part of the kitchen and began to pay more attention to the watering. To my satisfaction, the leaves perked up and got stronger.
After a bit of research, I found that violets liked consistent feeding with fertilizer. I went to the local garden center and found some liquid African violet fertilizer. I began feeding my plants regularly and to my further surprise and delight, masses of flower buds formed within a few weeks. Several weeks more, a thick crop of beautiful pink and purples flowers bloomed on both violets. By then, I was hooked.
Rosa and Lee…the two violets that started off my obsession.
I got two more violets, this time from Home Depot, and named them Walter and Bob…after my uncles. Unfortunately, my early success with Rosa and Lee was not repeated with this pair. I ran into some trouble. For some reason, not long after the flowers faded, Bob, and then Walter began to lose leaves at a rapid rate.
I visited websites, watched Youtube videos, and finally joined an African violet Facebook group to figure out how to save Walter and Bob. Again…it was the feared root rot, the thing that killed my mom’s peace lily. After a long struggle, I managed to save Walter, but Bob was mostly a lost cause. During my research, I learned a bit about propagating violets from leaves, and in a last-ditch attempt to save something, I pulled four leaves from Bob and attempted to propagate them. Two of the leaves shriveled away within a week or two. The remaining two survived and to my absolute delight started growing baby plantlets! I fell even further down the violet-lined rabbit hole.
One of Bob’s remaining leaf producing a baby plantlet.
All of this research opened up an entire world of African violets. Like most people whose only exposure to violets are the ones you usually see in your grandma’s house or in a big box store like Lowe’s, Home Depot, and Wal-Mart, I thought that most African violets looked pretty much the same. Dark green, fuzzy, oval leaves with large pink, purple or white flowers residing in 4-inch pots. Pretty enough…but not that exciting.
I didn’t realize that African violets also came in a range of sizes and in a multitude of colors, and flower and leaf shapes. I didn’t know that there were some violets that could trail, and could grow, flowing from a hanging basket instead of those neat leafy circles I grew up with. I didn’t know that there were legions of violet enthusiasts who create their own hybrid violets to produce an unimaginable variety of beautiful plants with names like Jersey Snowflakes, Smoky Mountain, and Buckeye Nostalgia.
Texas Stardom, one of the first hybrids added to my collection.
From specialty growers and online sellers, I soon found myself adding two, three, four, and more violets to my growing collection in the space of a few months. And I was still eager for more. My quest for saving the last remnants of Bob hooked me into the practice of growing new violets from leaves and I soon found myself not only propagating from my own collection but getting leaves from varieties I couldn’t get as a full-grown plant and trying to grow them into my newest additions. Over the last several months, I began turning a recently vacated room into a plant room to hold my rapidly growing collection of violets and leaves.
My plant stand in November 2021
I now have 38 full-grown African violets in my possession, over 100 African violet leaves at various stages of propagation, and an ever-growing wishlist of new African violet varieties. And been less than a year since I bought my first two. To say that I’m hooked is an understatement.
My plant stands now…doesn’t include my quarantine room
This obsession is why I’ve started this blog and a Youtube channel. Because you can only talk about violets for so long with family and friends before their eyes start glazing over. And because you can only post so often in a Facebook group before some of the members start sending messages saying “Please, you’re too obsessed! Less posting please!”.
(This hadn’t happened yet…but I can imagine it happening if I didn’t restrain myself 😉)
Here, I’ll be sharing my crazy African violet journey; new plants, discoveries, resources, tips from AV people smarter than me, stuff that I screw up…and hopefully, some triumphs too. If you like photos more than reading, check out my Instagram…and if you like videos, check out my Youtube channel. I’ve already shared a couple of new violet unboxing videos from last year. But I’m hoping to add more videos in the next few weeks. And if you want to share your own AV obsession, please feel free to drop me some comments.
