Category: My Violet Journey

I have twelve weeks to pick my African violet show plants for MAAVS, and I’ve already changed my mind three times. Anyone else relate?

I’ll be showing violets for the first time at the Mid-Atlantic African Violet Society (MAAVS) show in York, Pennsylvania this November. And now is the time to begin preparations…starting with choosing your plants. If you’ve ever stared at your whole African violet collection trying to figure out which one is “show material,” you already know it’s not as simple as picking your prettiest plant. There’s a real process behind choosing an African violet show plant — one that starts weeks, not days, before the show itself. With the Mid-Atlantic African Violet Society show landing on November 5th and 7th, August 13th marked my twelve-week mark, which means it’s decision time. Here’s exactly how I narrowed down my candidates, so if you’ve got a show on your calendar too, you can walk through the same process with me.

Why Twelve Weeks Matters

African violets don’t hit peak form overnight. Leaves need time to fill in evenly, damaged foliage needs time to be replaced with new growth, and bloom cycles need to be timed carefully so your plant peaks on the actual show date — not two weeks before it…or after it. Starting the selection process this early gives me room to correct small issues before they become disqualifying ones.

Symmetry

Before a judge even looks at the blooms, they’re looking at the shape. A show-quality African violet plant should form an even, flat, spiraled rosette — no gaps, no leaves sticking out further than their neighbors, no obvious lean to one side.

Nothing looks perfectly symmetrical this far out, and that’s fine. What I’m actually evaluating right now is the plant’s “bones” — is the growth pattern even? Are the leaves roughly proportional as they spiral out from the center? Small imperfections are fixable between now and show day. Uneven growth habits generally aren’t. In some cases, it’s about picking the right variety. There are some cultivars that naturally grow a bit more unruly and some that are practically bred for showing. And you’ll often see the latter varieties on the show table with blue ribbons. As much as I love my wild, weirdo varieties, those will be the ones that I’ll be keeping home. 

PRO TIP: Rotate your African violets a quarter turn every time you water them. It’s a small habit that helps prevent the lopsided, reaching-toward-the-light look that can throw off symmetry over time.

Bloom Timing

This is the issue that I hear most about at my violet club meetings. A plant blooming beautifully today might be tired and past its prime by November. Meanwhile, a plant just starting to push new buds now might hit ideal, full bloom right on show day…or not.

Choosing an African violet show plant means doing a little backward math: where is this plant in its bloom cycle, and will that cycle line up with the show date twelve weeks from now? It’s part science, part educated guess, which is exactly why this selection process starts so early.

Foliage Health 

Judges are scoring clean, healthy leaves — no yellowing, no spotting, no watering or pest damage. Of all the show categories, this is the one most within your control between now and the big day.

I’m prioritizing candidates whose outer leaves are already strong and whose center growth is tight and healthy. A plant that’s already dealing with a lot of leaf damage is starting from behind, and twelve weeks isn’t always enough time to fully turn that around.

Growth Stage

The last piece ties everything together — not just where a plant is today, but where it’ll be on show day. A plant that’s too young may not fill out in time. One that’s already mature might peak too early and start declining before judging even happens.

The ideal African violet show plant candidate has enough maturity to have real presence, with enough growing left in it that show week ends up being its actual best week.

This Week’s Prep Tasks

For anyone following along with their own show prep, the AVSA has a recommended show prep schedule on their website. Based on that schedule, here’s what I’m doing with my top candidates this week:

1. Stripping bad leaves — anything yellowing, damaged, or past its prime comes off so the plant’s energy goes toward good new growth and so the plant can establish its symmetrical shape..

2. Checking for suckers — those small offshoots at the base compete with the main crown for energy and they throw off symmetry, so they’re getting removed.

3. Disbudding — pinching off current blooms and buds so the plant redirects its energy into a bloom cycle timed for show day instead of blooming itself out early.

4. Repotting — fresh soil and a properly sized pot give the plant room to fill out symmetrically over the next twelve weeks.

On the bright side: stripping off those leaves and suckers makes more propagation material for me as well! 

Conclusion

Choosing an African violet show plant isn’t about picking your prettiest bloom today — it’s about picking the plant with the best shot at peaking, symmetrically and beautifully, exactly when it counts. I’ve got 10 candidates narrowed down, and I’ll be sharing updates as show day gets closer.

Have a show plant of your own in the works? I’d love to hear which one you’re eyeing — leave a comment and let me know! And if you want to see this whole selection process in action, I walk through it step by step in this week’s YouTube video. And subscribe to the channel to  follow along.

It’s that time of year! The temperatures are warming up and the online violet sellers and local garden centers are once again offering violets for sale! After several long, cold winter months of scrolling through websites, drooling over everyone else’s violet photos, and building up my wishlist, my spring African violet shopping spree has begun.

The spree began in early March with a random trip to my local garden center to pick up seedling soil where I was greeted with this sight:

So of course I went home with more than just seedling soil:

And of course, I went back two days later:

In addition to my haul from my local violet paradise, some of my favorite online violet sellers like Linda’s Secret Garden and Petals and Leaves were updating their inventories as well. So new boxes of violets have been a frequent sight on my doorstep in the past few weeks. I’ve recently discovered a few other vendors like Appalachian Violets, Woodland Blooms, and Gary’s Violets and they’ve quickly been added to my growing list of favorites.

I’ve shot unboxing videos of all of my new spring violet shipments and will be posting them to my YouTube channel soon. In the meantime, I’ve just posted a video about how I choose and inspect new violets from big box stores and local garden centers. I also go through how I prep my new beauties once I get them home. Everyone has their own process, so if you’re curious about mine you can check out the video here:

Happy growing!

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:

Lyndon Lyon Unboxing

Petals and Leaves Unboxing

Linda’s Secret Garden Unboxing

Selective Gardner Unboxing

If you enjoy these videos, remember that Spring ordering has begun. So rest assured I’ll have a lot more coming soon!

Happy growing!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Happy growing!