African violets with superior qualities

I like all types of African violets (AVs), but some hybrids are exceptional easy to grow, bloom and shape well. I called these AVs as show plants. I qualify these African violets as show plant based on 3 key points:

1. Vigorous growth - necessary to achieve the proper size as show plant & fast recovery after heavy blooming / injury / re-potting.
2. Perfect flat rosette shape - unique character of AVs.
3. Excellent bloomers - a good number of flowers per stalk.

Here is a list of African violets (in my modest collection) which I think possess excellent qualities as show plants*:

• Precious Pink - AVSA Honor Roll 1991; very beautiful pinkish variegated leaves; always in neat rosette shape; good bloomer; vigorous grower. (My personal favorite)

• Rob's Fuzzy Navel - very dark-green leaves; very beautiful peach-pink flowers; flower size is considered large for a semi-AV; shape well; vigorous grower.

• Ness' Crinkle Blue - AVSA Honor Roll 1998; most beautiful full double blue flowers; vigorous grower; plenty of flowers per stalk; require some efforts to shape well. (My personal favorite)

• Picasso - AVSA Honor Roll 1997; icy cool blueish flowers; vigorous grower; shape well

• Ode to Beauty - AVSA Honor Roll 1997; very huge flowers; shape well.

• Wrangler's Dixie Celebration - AVSA Honor Roll 1989; unique and large flowers; shape well.

As there are thousands of AV hybrids to grow, i hope this list (hopefully I'll update it regularly) will help beginners to grow some good quality AVs. When i started growing AVs, I don't know how / which AVs to buy and I tend to buy AVs largely based on flowers' designs and colours (on impulse too). Of course there are always new and good quality hybrids with extremely fancy design (e.g. Mac's Kup of Kindness) which are hard not to buy.

Also, in my opinion, it is best not to buy AV 'sport', unless it has sported into a beautiful chimera. A good quality AV hybrid should be stable (particularly multi-colored AV) and the flower pattern remain the same after many generations of propagation / growing. Some hybridizers introduce 'sports' as new hybrids, which I think is a subtle form of cheating. Hybridization makes use of available pool of genetics to create more beautiful and better quality AVs. It is an improvement (artificially though). Passing 'sports' as new hybrids will only downgrade the genetic quality of the AVs. So why pay for not-so-good quality AV sports? Click here for a list of AVSA AV sports. *This is based on my growing conditions in Singapore.