As a child growing up in Manchester, NH, I always looked forward to visiting my Grandmother. She let me work in her garden and taught me a lot about growing plants, especially African violets. I grew violets in my bedroom until high school, but then I got busy with other stuff and did not grow them again until around 20 years later. That’s when, in 1974, just after moving from California to St. Louis, I happened to see an ad for an African violet show at the Missouri Botanical Garden. There I met many African violet enthusiasts and left the show with small plants and plenty of info about African violet clubs in St Louis.

I joined one of the clubs, acquired more plants, built plant stands, and found myself firmly back in my African violet hobby. I grew many attractive plants from leaves supplied by fellow hobbyists, and this time around got involved in something different, hybridizing and producing African violet seeds. There’s something about growing any plant from seeds; you’ve got to be a fellow seeds person to understand it. Even now numerous crape myrtles that beautify our front yard resulted from my hybridization efforts with crapes.