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My Biggest Mistake:

I used to think that my biggest mistake was setting every leaf I took off of every plant. I wanted plenty to share. Somehow, though, in one of my many violet purchases I managed to buy a nice dose of soil mealies. I used to community wick water my violets and I really didn’t think that I needed to isolate my new purchases for very long. They all looked healthy and it was just easier to put them into the same water as the rest of my violets. I’m sure you can see where this is heading. I discovered that some of my blooming violets would suddenly have their flower stems just collapse. The flowers would turn brown and just flop over.

Playful Spectrum

Then I read a post that said if you find white waxy looking stuff in the water of your wicked plants you should check for soil mealies. To my horror I found the little buggers in the water of a couple of the community trays. So began the "Battle of the Soil Mealies". The worst part for me was that I had already sent out starter violets to a few people I had set up trades with. Oh what a horrible feeling it is to think that I sent out contaminated plants. It was hard to do but I emailed my friends and told them what I was dealing with. Violet people are so awesome….every one said don’t worry they would just isolate and keep an extra eye out for trouble. And they even told me if I lost anything special that they had to let them know and they would send me new starters. How cool is that?

Andy has been so helpful here too! He has helped me search every garden store, hardware store and Wally World we could get to, for neem oil and pyrithrium and anything else that says "kills mealies". He has kindly convinced me that sometimes the plant is just too infested to keep and I should make room for the healthy plants. He has helped me inspect plants and brings specific ones that he thinks need special attention to me. So I guess I would have to say that I have made two huge mistakes. The first was in not isolating new violets long enough and the second was community wicking my plants.

I don’t feel like I’m very good at anything with my violets yet but I recently had a friend visit the violet room for the first time. Her first words were "well, when did you decide to have a jungle down here?" and then she told me she couldn’t even keep a silk plant as nice as any of my violets. According to my FC2 list of my own violets I have 161 named violets. This includes set leaves though of which I recently lost 11. I think I have leaves set from almost all of them. The room is pretty full.

Rooting Method:

I think rooting my violets in VF-11 water has been quite an experience. This spring I had tremendous success and the leaves rooted and made babies really fast. It hasn’t been quite as fast later this summer though. When the leaves have good sized babies on them I set up a solo cup with a wick and my potting mix in it. I make a large hole in the center of the mix and set the rooted mama leaf with babies into the hole. I set the whole cup into a Jello cup that is half full of water. This keeps the potting mix very wet and I really think the roots adjust to the potting mix a lot better. By the time the water in the outside cup is used up, the roots have pulled down into the mix and I can cut the mama leaf off. Later when the babies are quite a bit larger I separate them and put them in their own cup of potting mix. This method really works great for me.

My Favorites:

Andy laughs at me about this, but I really haven’t met a violet I haven’t liked! I haven’t grown enough to know  which ones I prefer over others. My all time favorite violet is Optimara Maine. The colors of the blooms are as beautiful and varied as the Maine summer skies. I love the jewel colored violets and recently decided I love the softer pastels too. The Everfloris violets are incredible and I intend to have all ten of them. So far I have seven and all of them are beautiful. I especially love each and every violet that has been given to me either as a gift or through a trade. These are special to me because of the friendships I have made with the people I received them from.

Optimara Everlove

I don’t have a favorite hybridizer yet. I still want to give them all a chance. I love the Optimara’s though and the Buckeyes are beautiful. I guess that would be Holtkamp and Hancock. Looking through my list of "haves" on FC2 I notice that I have a lot of Sorano’s plants. Mary D. and Maas Angela are certainly favorites and they are both Maas's.

A Typical Day:

Four out of seven days a week I get up early to go to Curves for a half hour of intense but very fun exercise. When I get home from there and on the off days that I don’t go Andy and I usually have coffee in front of our computers which are beside each other. He reads the news and shares the important stuff with me. I read the emails from the Violet Voice and share the smiles with him. It’s a good way to start the day. Sometimes Andrea is behind us at her computer too. I get some time holding and talking with Owen who is almost five months old now. If I’m lucky I get to chat with friends for awhile. Funny how I like to know what’s going on in Montana on a daily basis.  And it’s nice to chat with Angela to see what new thing Emma has learned in the last few days. (Not to sit on violets I hope!) Ange and Emma are also members of the Violet Voice.  Andy heads out to the garage after coffee to get his work started and Andrea and I discuss and plan on dinner or grocery shopping or whatever needs to be dealt with.

I try to have time every day to do some work in my violet room. It seems I always have babies ready to be potted up and reservoirs to fill. I consider my day over when I have to start getting ready for work. Right now I work five days a week (Wednesday through Sunday) from 1:30 pm until 10:00 pm. When I get home from work at 10 I usually quick scan my emails again and then Andy and I take the dogs for a walk on the river walkway behind our house.  Even though I am sometimes too tired to go for a walk after work it is one of my favorite things to do. Andy and I get time alone to talk about our day and our plans for tomorrow and our dreams for the future.

A Word from Andy:

Bonny is so good with words it’s hard to add anything. I would like to say a little about our non-violet side. We both enjoy nature a lot. We have done so much together, from drag racing to white water canoeing to many whale watching adventures, to almost endless walks down wilderness trails and city streets, and even shopping trips. We still hold hands and enjoy being with each other the most. I have always had a camera close at hand and have a pretty good collection of nature and wildlife pics.

Optimara Cezanne

My collection of violet pics is growing. I do like taking pics of these little guys. It's fun to take one tiny little flower and make it so big and famous on the internet. When I get a pic that everyone likes I get a good feeling reading every response. That makes me want to go take more pics. I really like color, I don’t take many black and white pics, these little violets have the most intense, and endless color arrangements, I am still in awe when I take a good close up and view it full size on my monitor, I have to sit back and say wow. I think close ups show a side of violets that is often missed. So much for our non-violet side . . . . Andy

Bonny's Thoughts:

I love to see what varieties others grow and their method of growing. I really love seeing the pictures that people post. I am very impressed at the idea of people actually making a business out of their violet hobby. I would like to know more about how that works for people.

I have often thought about suggesting a swap of our problem violets. You know, the one that won’t die but just doesn’t grow good for you….you could send it away to a new home and maybe that person would have great success with it. I also think it would be fun if everyone in the group got leaves of the same variety and we had an on-line journal for people to keep and share notes in of how their leaves were being grown and how they were doing. Of course this would be one long project since it often takes 8 weeks or more to even get babies!

All plants shown in this interview were grown and photographed by Bonny & Andy -- What a team!   Thanks so much for sharing a bit of your busy lives with us.

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