Minal -

depends what you plan to do -

if you think you can start a home business selling violets - just forget it - there is no money in this business and even established sellers are working their tails off earning 35 cents an hour and wondering if they can pay their electrical bills next month.

If you plan to grow for pleasure and exchange - you decide what you will enjoy most - Rob's and Jolly's are minis and semi-minis, most of them are readily avalable, but both hybridizers put a lot of work making them good candidates for show plants. So if you want grow for show - and you like you pretties in small packages - it is a choice.

Fantasies - there are oodles of them.

Wrangler's and Ness are more rare since the hybridizers are already gone, Apaches - too. There were some very desirable ones with these names - but they could be already lost.

Harrington's - I never grew any - I looked at the pics -and they are very nice. I really do not know much about them.

Buckeye - Pat Hancock is alive and well and creates new varieties every year - I love her plants and you can get leaves or starter plants from her own site.

There are some truly gorgeous Rebels, I do not think they are rare.

If you want to grow something unusual - you can grow chimeras. They are harder to propagate, so they are more valuable.

Good Luck and Happy Growing of whatever you choose.

Irina

Irina, great comments. No, I would just like to grow for pleasure and to give as gifts to friends and family. I had great success last year from growing with leaves and my plants have started to bloom beautiful flowers.
But I have caught the violet collection bug and am interested in collecting rare violets. So I will definitely do more research on wranglers, ness and apaches.
Didn't know commercial violet growers had it that tough. I mean, they produce such beauties....one would expect them to receive a handsome reward for there hard work :).
Minal.

Minal -

regarding the low return -

you can get a blooming AV plant in a big box store for $3-4.

there are oodles of people selling leaves and starters on ebay - more competition

you need to pay electric and heating bills

shipping is not cheap

ebay is charging more and more

So - from the point of making a living - no way.

After a hybridizer released a new and very lovely hybrid - fruit of years of labor and love and lots of crosses and a dumpster of rejected seedlings - it is rare - and everybody wants it - 6 months later - whoever bought from you already put leaves down and now has babies galore...

I.

aaahhhh....I see, it does make sense. I guess supporting a family would be out of the question. Well, I am happy to buy leaves from ebay sellers and support there hard work.
Minal

I always buy the "leaf Specials" because my idea is:

You will get a good variety and probably will get leaves from AV that grow well for the grower.

Just what I think. I have always had very good luck.

Aha - they grow with vengeance and eat you out of house and home - AV Kudzu.

Cheers

I.