African violet family of Tennessee, The

Southern Living, Jul 2003 by Black, James

The Holtkamps continue a flowering tradition in Nashville.

A sea of soft colors, deep purples and ruby reds, stretches across a greenhouse the size of a football field.

"Will I ever get tired of growing African violets?" Reinhold Holtkamp, Sr., asks in reply to a visitor's question. "Not until our customers get tired of them too."

As long as Americans have been tending these tiny beauties, the Holtkamp family has been tinkering with them. In fact, if your grandmother's living room was filled with bright bunches of blooming violets, you can thank Reinhold's father, Hermann Holtkamp.

A Flower for the 20th Century

The first African violets came to Europe in 1892 after a German farmer found the plant growing on his plantation in East Africa (now Tanzania). He sent some seeds back to Germany, where a few ended up in the greenhouse of horticulturist Martin Dorrenbach. By the 1930s, Hermann, Martin's son-in-law, was successfully cultivating the tiny plants. Soon commercial growers across Europe and America were trying to grow African violets-but they had a big problem. The flowers lost most of their petals when shaken, making them almost impossible to ship.

So Hermann and his son, Reinhold, went to work. "Dad really put his neck on the line; he put everything he had into developing a nondropping violet," Reinhold, Sr., remembers. "We started experimenting in 1956 with nearly 10,000 violets. Out of those we found only three with the stable characteristics we needed." Nine years later the father-and-son team finally produced a plant with nondropping flowers, and the African violet's popularity really began to bloom.

By 1977 Reinhold and Hermann had decided to put down roots in Nashville. "My father has always had a pioneering spirit," Reinhold, Jr., says. "Although we thought he might have had a little bit too much spirit when we first saw this place."

The family went to work, tearing down dilapidated old greenhouses and refurbishing newer ones. Reinhold, Sr., continued his research; his wife, Gisela, coordinated production of miniature plants; and two of their three children, Margit and Reinhold, Jr., became active in the company.

Under their father's direction, they continue searching for the Holy Grail of violet lovers-a plant with yellow or crimson flowers. Reinhold, Jr.'s wife, Monique, recently started a garden-supply Web site, and children Lawrence, Pascal, and Michele are already digging in the dirt.

"They're growing a few plants at home," Reinhold, Jr., says. "They're like the rest of us-they love being around African violets. Who wouldn't? You feel good just looking at them."