| The Wizard of Wasps & Unusual Hybrids! David & Alessandra Senk All photos in this interview copyright © of David Senk
The Violet Voice is pleased to present an interview about that unique african violet hybrid called the Wasp. Some people love them and others wonder what anyone sees in these strange plants. Whatever the case, our interview with David Senk is certainly interesting and you are about to see some new wasps and other very unusual plants.
About David and His African Violet Hobby:
I am a 42 year old chemical engineer working in the electronics industry (or what remains of it!). I am a member of the Love for Wasps group on Yahoo, as well as the Yahoo African Violet hybridizing group and the Streptocarpus group. As far as other hobbies go, I am a private pilot, a hang-glider pilot and instructor, although I've taken a brief break from both the last few years because my weeks simply ran out of hours! I also enjoy studying foreign languages -- I speak Brazilian Portuguese, and I am learning Spanish and Mandarin. My wife, Alessandra, and I have two children, Cian and Melissa, 12 and 10 years old respectively. My  wife and two children are very supportive of my 'habit'. My 10-year old daughter has set up a small business to handle watering the collection -- as long as I keep my account current with her she keeps the plants fed ! Carnaval
I started growing violets in the mid 90s after my grandmother gave me a plant for my birthday. I had a fair talent for killing houseplants (usually slowly) up to that time and I was determined that this one was going to make it, so I went out and bought a couple of books at my local bookstore on African Violets to learn about caring for them. The books had photos of some of the hybrids available at that time and a list of sources...inside of a couple of months my available window sills were full.
Today I grow perhaps thirty or so named plants - ones that I use or plan to use in my hybridizing  projects - and I have about a thousand crosses at any given time that range from mature second and third generation plants that I am evaluating for possible registration and/or continued development, down to seedlings that have just been potted up to solo cups for the first time. My 'day job' usually keeps me going until about 6:00pm, although that varies from day to day and week to week depending on what projects I have and on my travel schedule. During the week I have very little time for my plants, perhaps 15 or 20 minutes a day -- just time to check out who has bloomed for the first time, which seeds have started to grow and which crosses have taken. Most of my violet time comes on the weekends. I probably spend six to ten hours a week in total playing (can you really call it work?) with my violets.
Bitten by the Hybridzing Bug:
In my "ideal" life, I could devote myself full- time to hybridizing and have all of the shelf space I need and also an automated watering system! The real me is limited to about a dozen shelves, has to fit violets into the little bits of time that life permits, and still has an incredible amount to learn about growing and hybridizing these great little plants.
It's tough for me to call hybridizing hard work -- I really enjoy the process of it all too much for that. From picking the goal in the first place, to choosing the parent plants, to getting the seed pod to set, all the way through the first bloom, it's a very rewarding and satisfying experience. When it starts being work, I'll probably have to stop doing it.
I would have to say that persistence and patience are two traits that apply in both my professional work and my hybridizing. I love a good problem and a good challenge. I really enjoy the opportunity to set up a good experiment, analytically observe what happens when it is run, and come up with a creative solution.
Big Bells |
