Every summer I plan to thin the violets and every summer I change my mind at the last minute, and this picture is the reason why. How can I pull these delicate flowers that cover the earth in spring in every shade of blue between aqua and indigo?
Sweet violets are to the flower bed what Pac-Man is to the dots in the maze: they consume all the space available to them and then fly out to greener pastures in search for more. Their rapacious spreading habits are fed by two biological advantages: they are irrepressible seeders and they also spread by runners. I guess I have to add reason number three: who can look at their innocent heart shaped leaves and their equally heart melting flowers and pull them?
Come summer, however, they act tougher than bar bouncers, no plant can intrude upon their territory. I’ve seen them win in battle against day lilies and hostas, and those are tough cookies.
Don’t judge a flower by its suave blossoms. No matter how determined you are to get rid of violets they will come back until you give up and let them run the show. I spread a few seeds a few years back on a bare patch of dirt in the shade. Nothing came out, so I forgot all about it, but a couple of years later they started sprouting stealthily here and there and now I have them in every corner of my yard.
There is one month of the year, the month of April, when none of this matters because then the world is covered in violets and you can only be happy about that.
Main Areas: Garden Writing; Sustainable Gardening; Homegrown Harvest
Published Books: “Terra Two”; “Generations”; "The Plant - A Steampunk Story"; "Letters to Lelia"; "Fair"; "Door Number Eight"
Career Focus: Author; Consummate Gardener;
Affiliation: All Year Garden; The Weekly Gardener; Francis Rosenfeld's Blog
I started blogging in 2010, to share the joy of growing all things green and the beauty of the garden through the seasons. Two garden blogs were born: allyeargarden.com and theweeklygardener.com, a periodical that followed it one year later. I wanted to assemble an informal compendium of the things I learned from my grandfather, wonderful books, educational websites, and my own experience, in the hope that other people might use it in their own gardening practice.