{"id":2681,"date":"2019-04-01T04:53:45","date_gmt":"2019-04-01T12:53:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/?p=2681"},"modified":"2019-04-01T04:53:45","modified_gmt":"2019-04-01T12:53:45","slug":"sister-violet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/sister-violet\/","title":{"rendered":"Sister Violet"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"violet<\/a>At this time of the year we celebrate spring by rushing out to the garden centers and buying flats of pansies and violas.\u00a0 We breathe the warming air and fill up our window boxes, pots and borders with these spring avatars.<\/p>\n

And then we turn around and try to exterminate their cousins, the common violets, when they pop up in our lawns.<\/p>\n

The most plentiful wild violet in my part of the world is Viola sororia, also known as the dooryard violet, woolly blue violet and sister violet.\u00a0 The Latin species name, \u201csororia\u201d comes from the same root as the English word, \u201csorority\u201d.\u00a0 Everyone has seen these little plants, but few people look at them closely.\u00a0 Those who do, see the \u201cwoolly\u201d, or slightly hairy, heart-shaped leaves and the characteristic violet flowers on slender leafless stalks.\u00a0 The blooms are generally purple to blue-purple, but common violets also appear with white flowers.\u00a0 The \u2018Freckles\u2019 variety features white petals splashed with small pinpoints of purple.\u00a0 Another common variant is Viola sororia f. priceana, in the past sometimes known as the \u201cConfederate violet\u201d.\u00a0 This nickname does not spring from any horticultural secessionist sympathies, but from the fact that the flowers are blue and grayish white, supposedly echoing the blue and gray of the Confederate uniform.\u00a0 Absent all considerations about the origins of the nickname, they are lovely violets.<\/p>\n

In my garden, the violets are neither encouraged nor rooted out like scourges of humanity.\u00a0 They are mostly left to their own devices.\u00a0 Growing in profusion in the raised bed next to my garage, the purple violets are often the first flowers to open there, sometimes even ahead of the snowdrops.\u00a0 In that space they have recently survived the dainty feet of the painters, who tend to flatten anything in their path.\u00a0 The violets are blooming now and seem unaffected by last year\u2019s painting adventure.<\/p>\n

Not all of my common violets bloom at once.\u00a0 The dark blue-purple ones appear first, followed eventually by white-flowered violets and the freckled types.\u00a0 The latter are a mystery, because the violets that I transplanted from a friend\u2019s yard were the priceana form.\u00a0 When they appeared the following year, the petals had freckles, rather than purple-blue centers surrounded by cream edges.\u00a0 It must be something about my soil, a genetic reversion, or some other mystery.\u00a0 I like the freckles, but long for the Confederates.\u00a0 Maybe this year I\u2019ll try transplanting additional blue and white ones in a different spot.\"violet<\/a><\/p>\n

So why do people disdain, if not dislike common violets?\u00a0 They are certainly better looking than other plants that fall into the \u201cweed\u201d category, like onion grass, chickweed and crabgrass,.\u00a0 They do tend to interrupt otherwise pristine swatches of greensward and this disturbs turf grass purists.\u00a0 Violets are also vigorous and sprout from underground rhizomatous roots, which means that they spread to their hearts\u2019 content.\u00a0 I find that they are easy to root out when they overpopulate, but some people don\u2019t want the rampant spreading to happen in the first place.<\/p>\n

I am not a turf grass fanatic and prefer the \u201cflowery mead\u201d look of a lawn that sports violets, clover and random patches of ajuga.\u00a0 That kind of lawn is just as easy to walk, play and picnic on, but it is less susceptible to drought and other turf grass troubles.<\/p>\n

However, every person has a right to decide the violet question according to his or her own preferences.<\/p>\n

Violets of all sorts are the stuff of history, lore and legend.\u00a0 The flowers and leaves are edible and crystallized violets are sometimes used to decorate cakes and pastries.\u00a0 At various times decoctions of violet parts, possibly even the roots, have been used to treat ailments including colds, headaches and even constipation.\u00a0 Four states\u2014Illinois, Rhode Island, Wisconsin and New Jersey\u2014have adopted Viola sororia as their state flower.<\/p>\n

Violets are the ultimate flower of spring, liking the moisture characteristic of the time around the vernal solstice.\u00a0 The plants thrive at the edges of woodland areas and suburban backyards.\u00a0 If you don\u2019t have them in your yard and want them, check out your neighbors\u2019 properties.\u00a0 Someone will have violets and will probably let you take a few.\u00a0 They do not mind being transplanted and will take root almost immediately.\u00a0 There is really nothing easier. and that is a bonus in the busiest season of the gardening year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At this time of the year we celebrate spring by rushing out to the garden centers and buying flats of pansies and violas.\u00a0 We breathe the warming air and fill up our window boxes, pots and borders with these spring avatars. And then we turn around and try to exterminate their cousins, the common violets, … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6,2,3],"tags":[2069,2067,238,706,2066,673,2070,2068,2065,31,2064,147],"class_list":["post-2681","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fall","category-general-interest","category-spring","category-summer","tag-confederate-violets","tag-dooryard-violet","tag-garden-history","tag-purple-flowers","tag-sister-violet","tag-spring-flowers","tag-viola-freckles","tag-viola-family","tag-viola-sororia","tag-violas","tag-violets","tag-wildflowers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2681","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2681"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2681\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2684,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2681\/revisions\/2684"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2681"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2681"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2681"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}