Wintry view from our shop

Enough is enough.  Here in Naples, we’ve been spared much of the snow that’s fallen just a few miles to our north (record December snowfall in Rochester) or east, but we’ve still gotten more than our share–there’s a reason we have 2 major ski areas within a 10 mile radius.  It’s also been one of the coldest winters in memory.

Shoveling my way through the most recent snowfall earlier this week got me to thinking why I’m still here in the frozen north, anyway.  I love the outdoors, but I hate the winter.  Our winters are  something to be seen on Christmas cards, not to be experienced first hand.  I love living here.  It’s beautiful.  Most mornings for the  other eight months a year, I’ll be up at sunrise, bicycling up and down our hills, the road to myself, enjoying the quiet and some of the best views on the planet.  It’s beautiful in winter, too, but who wants to be out in it?  And what’s beautiful about the brown slush that follows the pretty white stuff?

Okay.  So why do I tolerate it?  I wouldn’t, if it weren’t for plants, and growing them for a living.  Inside, it’s ALWAYS spring.  Unlike the shades of white and gray outside, we are surrounded by color inside.  Outside, all is dead or dormant.  Inside, there is life!  Of course, it’s warm, too (best not to think too much about the gas bill).   As a teenager, I was prepared to move to warmer climes as soon as I graduated school.  I went so far as to subscribe to newspapers from potential places I might move to.  Then by my senior year in high school,  I had caught the “violet bug” and had three light stands and the few hundred plants in my bedroom.  I no longer felt the urge to flee the cold and snow.

A few years later, when my obsession with plants had completely clouded my judgment, I decided on growing and selling plants for a career.  I could do what I loved to do,  I could be my own boss and, better yet, no commute!  Working at home meant not having to get up at 6 a.m. to shovel the driveway, scrape the ice off of the car, then drive who knows how long through that awful mess to work?  Then repeat the process to drive home (likely in the dark)!  Now, our morning commute is the two flights of stairs from our bedroom down into the shop–I have to admit, one of the biggest perks to the job.

I still hate winter, and I still don’t like snow, but growing plants for a living makes it all bearable.  I look out of our bedroom window when I get up in the morning and say, “looks like it snowed last night”, sometimes even, “gee, it’s kind of pretty out there with the snow on the trees”, and I can say this with a straight face.  The view is always nicer from heaven, I guess.

…Rob (photo by Olive)

Hoya linearis

Growing and selling plants has both its advantages and disadvantages.  One advantage is that we have access to, and can grow plants that the hobby grower might not be able to.  The disadvantage is that what we grow is largely determined by what we can sell.  Though we can grow more plants than most growers, we can’t grow everything. Except for a handful of plants, at some point, we have to put sentiment aside and decide whether we should devote the time and space to growing a plant that doesn’t consistently perform or might not sell.

It’s best not to make such decisions too rashly, though.  Occasionally, we’ll continue to grow a plant, despite our lack of success in growing it well, just because it’s managed to capture our interest–becoming one of our “pet” plants.  One that currently comes to mind is Hoya linearis.  We were given a cutting of this plant a few years ago and were able to grow it into a mature plant fairly easily and quickly.  It soon became a personal favorite, being a little cuddly and, certainly, a bit odd.  Thin, string-like stems cascade like waterfalls from a pot, covered in their length by very thin, soft, finger-like “string bean” leaves.  The leaves, seemingly barely attached to the stems, dangling in whichever direction gravity would take them.

Certainly an unusual plant and, when grown to size, a very attractive one.  Without blooms, though, there would be no point in attempting to sell it–our customers expect flowers, at least on hoya. It would be foolish to propagate and grow more of something, and try to sell to others, something that we hadn’t been able to grow to bloom ourselves.  Meanwhile, this plant just kept growing and growing.  For two years, we had a plant that certainly seemed large and mature enough to bloom, but didn’t.  Rather than worry or fuss about it, we decided to just leave it alone–a nice, odd, foliage plant!  Then one day this winter we noticed some small buds, then more, a few days later.  All appeared at the ends of the long, cascading, stems.  Certainly different than most hoya.  Our not bothering to prune it any longer, apparently was a good thing!  Soon, we had bloom, then more, and they each seemed to last forever.  The photo at left was taken about a month ago.  It looks just a nice today, with many of the same blooms still fresh on the plant.  It’s actually a very good bloomer!   We just had to have a little patience, and to stop fussing over it, leaving it alone long enough to decide on its own to perform.

'Rob's Zipper Zapper'

As an African violet hybridizer who specializes in small plants, one of the most difficult, and important, decisions is how to classify new plants.  Is this plant a miniature or semiminiature? Worse, is it more of a small standard, or something in between (‘tweeners’ as we call them, they usually never get named, released, or sold)?  For most growers, this is a distinction without much of a difference.  Small is small, and unless one wants to split hairs, or exhibit in AVSA shows, it matters little.

Officially, the distinction is that miniatures, when mature, should not exceed 6″, and semiminis 8″ in diameter.  Once described, growers, exhibitors, and judges expect this plant to forever conform.  Unfortunately, the breeder describes the new hybrid based on his experience, which may be far different than that of those who will be growing this plant once described and released.  For us, the maximum size limitations seem quite generous.  Even our largest semiminiatures rarely approach 8″ in diameter grown under our conditions, under our care.  Some would struggle to even approach 6″ and could even be mistaken to be small miniatures.

Another complication is that, over time, selective propagation leads to ever smaller plants being grown and sold by us.  When selecting leaves for propagation, we use those from plants with the best (and most proper) bloom color and the smallest growth habit–after all, we want small plants, not larger ones.  This means that some varieties, originally described as semiminiatures, over the years, have become so small as to be miniatures, even small miniatures.  One good example is ‘Rob’s Fuddy Duddy’, an excellent plant (one of the very best for show) that is registered as a semimini, but which struggles to reach 4″ in diameter when grown by us.

“When grown by us” is an important disclaimer.  We can never speak for how plants will perform when grown by others.  Plants are like children, parenting and environment play as much, or more, of a role as genetics do when determining what they become as adults.  Sometimes, when we see one of our varieties winning top honors at a show, we’re surprised at how much better someone else can grow “our” plant.  Other times, we’ll hear complaints about a poorly growing plant from someone who’s never given it the proper care or environment needed for it to grow to it’s potential.

What brought all of this to mind was one of our new varieties for 2011, ‘Rob’s Zipper Zapper’ (pictured).  This is just one of those semiminiatures that can give people like us headaches.  It’s a wonderful plant, with big, showy blooms and easy growth habit.  It promises to be a good variety for both the hobby grower and exhibitor.  It is a variety, however, that can grow too large if not cared for properly.  Though it doesn’t produce long leaf stems (petioles), it does have relatively large leaf blades.  If it were a person, you might call it “stocky”.  This can give it the appearance of being a larger plant than it really is.  To illustrate, the plant pictured is just a bit less than 6″ in diameter, a ‘miniature’ if strictly defined.  It appears bigger, though, with its large blooms and relatively large leaf surface.

Though ours is under 6″, we need to allow for small differences from grower to grower, calling it a semi miniature is more appropriate.  Unfortunately, allowing for this additional 2″ in size, is never enough if not grown properly, particularly given its natural “stocky” appearance.  This is one reason so few new varieties are registered as “miniature”–breeders, being risk-averse, a reluctant to label a plant as such, knowing that someone, somewhere, will grow it abnormally large.

In the case of ‘Rob’s Zipper Zapper’, if it is grown crowded and/or never properly groomed (allowed to sucker or grow weedy), it can easily approach, and sometimes exceed the allowed 8″ in diameter.  This comment was made only last week in our shop about plants growing crowded together in a tray, but that proves my point.  Those plants (they were being saved for leaf cuttings) had been grown very close, jammed together in a tray, never groomed or repotted.  The leaves had no where to grow but up, and had to stretch beyond their neighbor to reach the light.  The result?  Longer petioles and a larger plant!

The plant pictured came from that same tray.  As did 5 others I grew for the purpose of a photo.  All looked pretty much the same.  A plant under 6″ in diameter (yes some outer leaves were removed, but this outer row was actually covered by the row above).  Definitely a semiminiature, as the size of the leaf blade would suggest, but with shorter petioles, and easily under 8″. Though we need to allow for some variability caused by care and environment, in the end we need to describe the plant grown under favorable, if not optimal, conditions–what it can and should be.

In any event, I like this one.  I’m happy with it, and it does well for me.  Certainly a nice plant, and one I’m hoping to show a number of these at this year’s AVSA convention show.

….Rob

S diplotricha punter #7

This is new.  Where to start?  We’ve just finished (or are about to) a major redesign of our website, which includes this blog.  We also changed servers, moved to another host, and added a shopping cart, among other things.  It got me to thinking how much the hobby, and my part in it, has changed over this time.   (The plant shown at left is the first Saintpaulia species I grew, and still one of my favorites–appropriate, I think for the nature of this post).

Back in the early 70′s when I first started growing plants, violets, and violet societies, were still in the late stages of their golden age.  There were plenty of hybridizers, commercial sellers, and serious growers.  Back then, the local violet club would be concerned about finding meeting rooms large enough!  Of course, many of those at the meetings were there more to socialize, and most were women, actually, ‘housewives’–a species now nearly extinct.  Back then, I was the oddity–the only man in a room full of women, nearly all of whom 20 years or more older than me.

What made me want to go to a meeting anyway?  New plants for my collection!  A few of the members with larger collections would order from some of the many commercial growers and hybridizers, or travel to their greenhouses to get the latest varieties.  I wanted to be first in line to collect the ‘left-overs’, or beg for a leaf, or use my status as only ‘young man’, and new member, in the room to my advantage.   I also wanted to learn everything I could from people I figured knew a lot more than me about these wonderful plants.

Ten years later, I was a veteran, of sorts.  I had begun to exhibit, and actually win.  Back then, it really meant something.  People were serious about growing showplants.  400 or more entries in our local show wasn’t unheard of and, unlike today, most of those were large standards.  I can’t describe the awe I felt when I attended my first AVSA convention show at the old Syracuse Hotel in 1982.  Just after that, I started to hybridize, had my first decent hybrids by 1985, and began selling them, part-time.  I entered my first commercial display table that year, in Orlando, travelling 2 days by train to get there.  Looking back, this show marked the end of an era.  I took 3rd place that year.  Not noteworthy, until you consider that there were 12 (yes twelve!) commercial displays at that show.  No show since has even approached this number.  By the mid ’80′s the hobby had begun to change, and the market for ‘hobby’ violets had begun to shrink to the point that it could no longer support the number of profitable commercial growers that it had.

What happened?  A number of things.  African violets had lost, or begun to lose, their status as ‘special’.  They were no longer something people had to search for, and cherish once they were found.  Blame this on the ubiquity of the mass-produced violets–the Rhapsodies, Melodies, Optimaras, and the like.  I once could find the latest Granger (remember them?) varieties at the local Woolworth (remember them?).  With the coming of Holtkamp, and Wal-Mart, there was no longer a market for such varieties.  Stores could make a bigger profit on the mass-produced plants, and since they were so cheap, could treat them as a disposable, easily restockable, impulse-purchase, product.  Growers like Grangers, and others, who produced specialty varieties, at necessarily greater cost, no longer could profitably compete.

Of course, it’s not that simple, and Holtkamp isn’t entirely to blame (and I don’t mean to).  As I mentioned, ‘housewives’ became extinct, or at least much more rare.  No longer could women afford to choose a hobby over a career.  With the disappearance of these women came the disappearance of the ‘weekday afternoon’ violet clubs–common then, very rare now (one positive side effect is that the hobby became more ‘man friendly’).  As a ‘common’ man’s hobby, African violets will always lose in the trade-off between disposable income and disposable time.  Now having more of the former didn’t translate into more people buying and growing violets–they never had been priced out of the means of most people.  Having less disposable time, though, did have an adverse effect.  Less time to research catalogs for the latest varieties, attend to plants, and attend meetings.  As time became less disposable, violets became more so.  Violets became something to be purchased on an impulse, grown as long as time and interest allowed, then disposed of–an indoor ‘annual’, so to speak.

Having already been forced to change, this evolution was accelerated further with the tremendous changes in information technology of the late ’80′s and early ’90′s.  Up until that time, societies still served an important function–information.  With the exception of a few, out of print, books at the local library, the local club was the only place where an interested grower could acquire reasonably accurate, up to date, information on care and varieites.  Once that information, and the knowledge of most every grower on the planet, became easily accessible via the internet, societies themselves became expendable.  In other ways, though, it brought the hobby to everyone, and presented new opportunities for the commercial growers and hybridizers that remained.

Why on earth, then, did I decide to choose selling violets as a career?  Easy.  It’s what I love to do.  It’s what I was meant to do.  It’s what I’m good at.  It’s introduced me to most of my current friends.  It’s introduced me to the one person I would have never met otherwise, Olive, with whom I can spend the rest of my life with, doing what we both love to do.  I’m one of those extremely rare people who can’t, and won’t, complain about the grass being ‘greener’ elsewhere.

I guess, at this point, you could call me successful, if we define success as being able to make a modest living doing what he wants to do.  Some of this was by design.  A background in business and economics (a college professor) helped.  Absorbing almost everything I could from fellow growers, exhibitors, and hybridizers, helped more.  Spending most every spare dollar and free day attending and travelling to meetings, shows, and conventions helped to.  Not knowing any better, or choosing to ignore it (the prospect of personal bankruptcy) probably helped the most.  When you want something bad enough, you take greater risks.

Good fortune and wise decisions, at the right time, probably made the difference, though.  The first of these is simply deciding to do it, taking the leap when I was young enough, and ambitious enough, to do so.  Career changes are easier when one hasn’t invested time in one, and hasn’t the financial and ethical obligations of raising and supporting a family as an older adult.  Living in poverty is surprisingly easy when one is young–it is a relative term that used once one has survived it and been spoiled by a better life.  The second was deciding to move to Naples in early 1992, into a century-old barn, where ‘Rob’s Mini-o-lets’ would become ‘The Violet Barn’.  This meant being able to grow tens of thousands of plants, not merely the thousands that I could in the basement of the house I was renting at the time.  Growing them doesn’t mean selling them, though.  More good fortune, and wise thinking, was launching our web-site just afterwards–nearer the beginning of the internet revolution, rather than having to catch up later.  What began as a small business getting checks in the mail from ‘little old ladies’ became instant shopping and payment online.

By 1997, the business had grown beyond a one-man operation.  This was the first year to actually turn a real profit.  I could begin to pay off my debt and hire some help.  Then the best stroke of luck.  Meeting Olive (actually she chose to meet me), somebody who shared my passion, and not being foolish enough not to marry her–after 6 months of mostly internet and phone courting (3 weeks of which actually spent together), and a 9-day engagement.  Wednesday will mark 13 years together, most every day of which we spend together with our plants.  Things could be better, as it could be for most everybody in today’s world.  Things have changed a lot in nearly 40 years.  I’ll the the last to complain.

…Rob