The Garden State African Violet Club presents its 61st annual African Violet show and plant sale at the Mercer County Community College student center, West Windsor, on Saturday and Sunday, May 5 and 6. This year’s theme, “Revolutionary Violets,” features plant and flower arrangements that evoke the important role of New Jersey as the crossroads of the American Revolution.
African violets and gesneriads (flowering houseplants of the African Violet family) will be for sale along with growing supplies. Experienced club members and African Violet enthusiasts will be available to answer questions about growing African Violets and diagnosing ailing plants. Admission is free.
Paula Bal of West Windsor is the vice president of the club and chairwoman of the show and sale. Besides exhibiting her plants, she will speak about the “Basic Care of African Violets” on Sunday, May 6, at 1 p.m.
Members of the club also include Plainsboro residents Marianne Alliano, Luanne Arico, and Karen Kennedy. Arico presents “African Violet Species” on Saturday, May 5, at 2 p.m.
Born in Brooklyn, Bal was raised in Staten Island. Bal graduated from NYU with a degree in physical therapy. She and her daughter, Jessica, now 13, lived in Freehold until 2007.
They moved to West Windsor when Paula married Frank Bal, a West Windsor Police officer for 15 years. The couple had been invited to the same events for years but did not meet until they were introduced by mutual friends. They married in 2007. Jessica attends Grover Middle School, participates in Dance Corner, is a member of the Wildcats, studies Irish stepdance, and plays piano. Frank’s son, Frankie, 9, attends school in East Brunswick, plays basketball, and rides dirtbikes.
Frank, president of the West Windsor PBA, recently retired from the Army reserve after 21 years. Paula has worked at the Trenton Orthopedic Group in Mercerville for four years.
“When I was 10, my grandfather taught me how to propagate a violet using one of the leaves off the plant,” says Bal. “I was fascinated by how just one leaf could make several baby plants that would grow and bloom into the beautiful plants my grandpa had on his windowsill. He taught me how to feed and take care of them.”
“I watched the plants grow and flower and became hooked onto something that I didn’t know would develop into a lifelong hobby,” she says. “Each time I would go to my grandparents’ house, we would check the plants’ progress. The bonding experience with my grandfather has given me memories I will never forget.” He continued to grow violets for many years and died in 2003 at age 92.
In her 20s she grew plants on two homemade light stands, cross pollinated plants, and sold the offspring to local greenhouses. In 1994 she grew 150 plants as favors for her first wedding and each person got a violet in a special self watering pot.
Bal took a hiatus for 10 years and recently started growing seriously after encouragement and a gift of a light stand from her husband. She joined the Garden State African Violet Club in 2009 and entered her first violet show in 2010, “I was nervous to enter the show,” she says. “When I won best in show, I cried my eyes out,” she says. “When I told the judges about how much I missed my grandpa and how proud he would have been to see our achievement, they cried too.”
“My family is very supportive of my hobby,” she says. “Even though my plant room is in my basement with no windows, I experience spring in my sanctuary every day, and my plants bloom throughout the year. My indoor garden cheers me when I have a bad day and a source of peace from the hustle and bustle of being a mom, physical therapist, and wife.”
A volunteer at the West Windsor Senior Center, Bal often presents lectures on how to care for violets. A member of the Tristate African Violet Council, she served on the show committee for the recent African Violet Society of America’s National Convention in Cherry Hill. “I have plans to become an African Violet judge,” she says.
“I now have four light stands and grow more than 300 plants,” she says. “I have started hybridizing again and hope to someday name one of my plants after my grandpa.”
Show and Plant Sale, Garden State African Violet Club, Mercer College Student Center, West Windsor. Saturday, May 5, Noon to 4 p.m. and Sunday, May 6, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Free. 609-259-7095. www.princetonol.com/groups/gsavc.
