"No," the champ says, rolling her eyes. "It's not the hydrated cow manure."
Nelly always had a few African violets on her windowsill, but she didn't get serious about the plants until 1984, when a friend introduced her to the Violet Showcase. She began with one little plant stand, then moved onto another, then another, then some folding tables, then her son's drafting table, then the spare bedroom, and then the entire south end of her basement.
Bud Peen
Anthony Camera
Flower power: Doug and Barbara Crispin in their Violet
Showcase.
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"It keeps expanding," she says.
In 1985, after joining a violet club, she won her first contest. She hadn't planned to enter, but a friend took one look at her violets, hauled them to the Botanic Gardens and returned with "a bunch of ribbons." Now she has several boxes of awards, including a "best novice" honor.
"Yes," she groans. "I was a novice at one time."
Nelly insists there's no real secret to her success. She pasteurizes her soil (baking it in her oven at 180 degrees for thirty minutes). She uses bloom booster (but not too much). She disbuds. But mostly, she grooms.
"I just have an idea of what they're supposed to look like, and I try to make them look that way," she says.
Everything she knows, she adds, she learned from her mentor, Ella Kiesling, and other club members. Without them, she wouldn't know a stigma from a peduncle. They taught her how to prune. They taught her how to cross-pollinate. They taught her how to grow plants like her trademark Edelweiss, a double white with dark-green leaves that regularly earns top honors.
But even Nelly isn't perfect. She can't grow certain plants, like her rival's prizewinning Precious Pink. And this year, after she and her husband installed a new furnace, the temperature in her basement fluctuated. "For a while, new stalks would come out and keel over with mildew," she admits. "I had to spray every day."
If she has one piece of advice, it's this: "Look at the whole plant, and not just the blossom. And don't get carried away. Be careful what you select. Once you get a lot of violets, it's hard to get rid of them."
Which is why she plans to unload as many flowers as possible at this weekend's show -- prize-winners included.
"For me, the fun is in the growing," she says. "I like to try new ones and see what comes out."
And if one of those new ones should win a ribbon? "Oh, I love competition," Nelly says. "It's fun to have 'best plant.' It's a matter of bragging rights."
Although Nelly would never brag.
"I really don't know if I consider myself to be that good," she says. "I go into every show thinking someone else's plants are better than mine. If anything, I'm happily surprised."
The violet people are coming.
Hundreds of them.
Right now they're bundling flowers in bags of newspaper strips and cardboard boxes. They're baking casseroles and bundt cakes. On Friday, they'll be at the Botanic Gardens to set up their tables, register their plants, prepare the exhibits and reunite with old friends. On Saturday, the judges will judge, award ribbons, announce the best of show. And then the sale will begin, continuing through Sunday.
Harry and Linda Weber can't wait.
Two weeks after that first gloomy prognosis, their violets perked up. Blossoms grew fat. Leaves became symmetrical. Colors shone bright. If all goes as planned -- they don't want to jinx things -- they will exhibit 25 flowers in nine different classes. And if Mother Nature smiles upon them -- they don't want to jinx things -- they might unload a few plants at the sale and come home with a blue ribbon or two.
"We're optimistic," Harry says.
With good reason: This year, he used cow poop.
Three generations of flower growers are gathered at an African violet exhibition. A granddaughter turns to her grandmother. "How old is that one violet?"
The old woman thinks for a moment. She counts birthdays, marriages, holidays, tallies the years on her fingers.
"Forty-five."
"Forty-five!"
"Yes," the grandmother says. "It's part of our family."
