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Guild of Natural Science Illustrators, Inc.
The Society of Tempera Painters
Marians Of The Immaculate Conception
Granger’s Grand Growing
by
Virginia Saigeon,
Owner of Hillside Violets, 1970 to 1983
Granger’s 'Crystallaire' by Wayne Discher
Crystallaire
(4295) 02/21/81 (Eyerdom) Double medium blue star/white edge. Plain, pointed.
Large
Granger’s
Grand Growing !
African violets are easy to buy, easy to
grow and oh so easy to love.
There are modern hybrids with foliage as colorful as the flowers – green
flushed with pink and white, cream and even yellow. And the flowers – well!
Pinwheels, stripes, speckles, thumb-prints, singles, semi-doubles, doubles,
pansies, stars and bells. Hybridizers have produced near red blooms and are
working on yellow. Is there an end in sight? Perhaps. But I’m going to talk
about the beginning – or, more accurately, the middle, the 60’s and 70’s -
Granger Gardens and, as far as I’m concerned, the A#1, top of the line, king
of the hybridizers – Hugh Eyerdom.
Hugh brought us the first glorious
glistening whites, the grandest pale blues, the finest white edges and so many
other characteristics we take for granted in the violets we see today.
I won’t pretend to know Hugh any better than any of his other thousand
customers – but I know his plants.
My favorites include those sparkling white miracles Eternal Snow, Sammye
Ballard, Starshine, Miriam Steele,
Polaris and Blizzard
- glorious huge heads of bloom standing tall on sturdy stalks over well-behaved
satiny foliage. And they said white flowers faded and dropped. He gave us the
glittery blue edged whites of Swiss Ballet, Monaco and Spring
Deb: the red edged Rose Frost,
Festival and Venetian Lace.
Hugh gave us the clear blues. I doubt there will ever be a clearer pale blue
than Wonderland, so aptly named with its big wondrous clear blue stars.
Then there’s the beautiful clear blue of Crystallaire, darker than
Wonderland and fuller with a glistening white edge. His blues are without
parallel – Ming Blue, Millie Blaire, Royalaire, Jim
Dandy, Delft Imperial, Seafoam and Lullaby.
He gave us so many dazzling pinks – Camelot Pink,
Peach Glo, Chanticleer, Pink Elegance, Cotillion and the beautiful lavender-purple of
Electra
and Roberta.
Camelot
Pink (4293) 2/21/81 (Eyerdom) Double light-medium pink/white fluted edge.
Plain. Large
Hugh
gave us Garnet Elf and Firebird – vibrant reds with wide white
edges. He gave us Carnival, Peppermint, Majestic, Cabaret, Crimson Frost, and Valencia, the first chimera. So many of his are
classic plants – Fashionaire, Sylvan Blue, Carefree, Starburst, Faith, and one of my favorites, the huge double white with the deep
purple edge – Serenity.
Hugh gave us plants that have stood the
test of time, blooming true from a leaf cutting even after all these years. He
gave us show winner after show winner – plants so sturdy and easily grown that
a novice could walk away with a blue ribbon. No prima donnas here. He grew them
in dirt – not the fancy concocted soil-less mixes we fuss over. Dirt - scraped
from his fields. He grew them in deep pots not the tubs we scour the shelves to
find. He didn’t cosset them or molly-coddle them. He didn’t have to.
When you brought Hugh’s plants home you knocked them out of their pots, washed
off their root balls and repotted them in a fancy soil-less mix. At least I did.
The soil he grew them in would set up like concrete away from his greenhouse.
Did the plants mind all that trauma and fuss? Not a bit. They kept growing away
as if nothing had happened. Hugh’s plants bloom continuously, their foliage
rarely needs training. Put a leaf down and you’ll soon have 12 or 15 babies.
Carnival
(4298) 02/21/81 (Eyerdom) Semidouble dark red-orchid/some white. Ruffled. Large
If you want to see what an African violet
can be at its best – hunt down the old Granger hybrids. They are well worth
the effort.
I learned much about violets from that kind and wise man – I learned to relax,
leave them be most of the time, have fun with them, enjoy them and love them. He
did.
A note from Laurie: I would like to thank Wayne
Discher for his beautiful photographs of Granger African Violets.