Her two plants come from a strain of flowers that were grown from seeds that spent about six years in space in the 1980s. The seeds were exposed to radiation, which caused certain genetic mutations.
Guests to the Varner home are drawn to the pair of potted plants by the living room window.
"They can't believe the size of the blooms," said her husband, Ron Varner. "Some of them are as big as half a dollar. That's almost double the size of a normal African violet."
Arietta Varner's daughter, Crystal Russ, Levittown, gave her mother a small, potted "Space Violet" as a Mother's Day gift about nine years ago.
Ron Varner, as the green thumb between the two, tended to the plant. He watered it once a week, gave it a fertilizer supplement every three weeks and kept it in a window where it got bright, indirect light.
A year later, the plant had grown, so he put it in a larger pot. Four years after that, it was even bigger, and he moved it to a pot about 8 inches in diameter, where it stays today.
During that second transition, a piece of the plant fell off. Ron Varner put it in water, where the cutting sprouted roots. He potted it, and now they have two plants.
The second one took about four years to reach the size of the first one.
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