I agree with campanula that there are violets and violets and furthermore, there are the cultivated violas. I am surprised that Americans don't seem to know species names? Or is it my experience only? I asked a friend about a geranium in a Wisconsin wood and was told it was a "geranium" which I could see for myself. In California I asked about a Texas bluebonnet, a bit unsure because I'd seen it only in pictures and was told there too, that it was a geranium.

Johnny Jump Up can refer to several violet species in the US, Viola bicolor or Viola tricolor among others. The common Viola odorata, sweet violet, is a violent spreader and I remove it in beds but leave it under trees. Dog violets are unscented but lovely in my wood. I let Viola arvensis and Viola tricolor grow only among the creeping thymes between pavers in my untidy patio. I wish my freckled violets and the Labrador violets would spread. I grow 9 named varieties of Viola cornuta, horn violets, and my favourite is Boughton Blue (aka Belmont Blue) one of the longest flowering of all my plants. It's the only one I allow near roses. It's too busy flowering to have the urge to spread. A selfseeder I don't like and pull wherever I see it, is Viola elatior, tall and dull. It's a protected species in Sweden but I don't think that applies to my plants that come from Wisley seed.

Thanks for the clear description of the various kinds of violets. I am aware that there are different violets but admit to not knowing much about them.

I would say that in America the average home gardener, even the more enthusiastic among us, does indeed not know species names. Very serious gardeners do; but they are the exception.

Rosefolly

It is true. I did not know the name of the wild violets. They were always just there. So I looked them up. The white is Viola striata, the yellow is Viola pubescens and the blue is Viola soraria. None of these is fragrant. Johnny-jump-up, Viola tricolor, came here as a volunteer in a potted plant and lived for many years but is gone now. Although it seeds, it is not invasive. I have grown Viola labradorica, and some of the variegated leaved varieties, 'Syletta' and 'Dancing Geisha'. These lasted a few years. The various cultivars of Viola odorata never lasted for long because they cannot take our winters. This grieves me as I love scented flowers and the scent of violets is exquisite.

Cath

I am very fond of Viola tricolor, but it won't persist here. I have trouble getting it to last even a few weeks.

Rosefolly

I am so grateful that a few wild violets have decided to spread in the dry deep shade under a couple of pine trees where nothing else will grow. Their thick heart-shaped foliage looks lovely, and the blue flowers in early spring are a nice bonus.

Now, having said that, I'm wondering if I'll be posting again in a couple of years saying I wish I'd listened and pulled them out...

One man's weed is another man's companion plant. I love the violets in the cemetery, although others of our volunteers go after them with a vengeance. I let them work, knowing that the violets are more persistent than they are. We did have a couple of nasty pests on them this year and the foliage curled and looked burned. If they do that every year, I'll want to take them out because they look ugly.

Yes, we Americans don't tend to know species names but I can certainly bore everybody with the names of roses.
Anita

No, I don't know species names. I just know what they look like and that they are very invasive. I'm not talking about Johnny Jump Ups or violas but the wild ones that form huge thick corm like roots underground and spread and seed like wildfire in my garden.

I agree, Anita, I could spend hours naming rose varieties too!

Sorry to have been such a boring know-all but I have been wondering. Knowing species names has nothing to do with gardening in Sweden, it's more about love of nature. In Linnaeus' country children learn elementary botany in school, including common plant names, beginning with the local flora in lower grades. Older children learn to classify plants according to the bi-nomial system. But I don't really know how much children have to learn now.

I wish they'd teach some botany in schools here. When I first moved to this part of the country (from Atlanta) I asked about a dozen people what those shrubs were that were covered in golden flowers in spring. None of them knew what they were, and these were people who had grown up here! Eventually I learned that it was the highly invasive scotch broom. You'd think learning the difference between fireweed and dame's rocket (both of which grow on the sides of roads) is more relevant than learning dinosaur names, but I guess that wouldn't be considered "fun" enough for kids to learn. As if kids are only in school for their own amusement... but that is a whole other rant!

When it comes to my 7-year-old daughter, I've taken matters into my own hands, and she can correctly identify dozens of plants. And guess what... once she started learning about them, the subject became more interesting to her, too, and now she asks me about plants that she doesn't know, and can tell me which plants resemble it.

That said, I don't know species names for more than a handful of plants, either. It seems like most of what I grow is hybrids without a species name, anyway.

Not to worry, mariannese, I don't think anyone was offended by your question. We were taught some basic genus, species, class, etc. in grade school but I don't recall any specifics for local plants being taught. Besides, I've long forgotten it all. I'm terrible at the Latin names for anything and only know the local common names of most plants. And local common names can change a great deal from place to place in the USA so it can get very confusing. I guess that's why they say a picture is worth a thousand words! With a picture everyone can be sure of exactly what plant you're talking about.

I wish they still taught Latin in high schools. Even at the higher education level only the better colleges and universities still offer it. I know it's not used as much as it was a generation or two ago, but I for one would find it genuinely useful in my gardening. So many plants have similar common names, and many plants have several different common names. And certainly those in law or health professions could still benefit.

Oh well; it's not going to happen.

Rosefolly

I would love to see botany taught in schools, with emphasis on the study of local plants. Swedish children are lucky. My daughter has turned into a fan of all things indoors, but when she was younger I taught her about plants and their names. She still has a good eye for them.

I developed a habit of learning the Latin names of plants when I came to Italy and began talking with nurserymen. I didn't know the Italian names of plants, but the botanical names are universal, so they were a useful linguistic bridge. When it comes to identifying wild plants I find a human guide or tutor is a great help. I get quite confused about violets.

Suzy, the variety of violets you grow is amazing! I'm envious. I have several old varieties of scented violets plus the wild V. odorata, and that's it. But they're great plants.

Melissa

indeed, Melissa, botanical nomenclature is absolutely universal and many of the names are exceedingly enjoyable (humulus lupulus, betula pendula), Even so, I also love the common names which vary from region to region - Texas bluebonnets sounds lovelier to me than lupinus texensis. Which brings me to spelling - I find that I can (roughly) render most species names aloud but qwriting them down is another issue altogether especially many of the endings. A friend who runs a nursery developed a habit of mumbling the names (or an approximate version)very fast. She is rarely challenged. For myself, when called upon to recall a name, I have airily announced such and such is a viburnum - a handy plant because there are so many of them. As for botany, I studied horticulture for a few years and loathed this part of the study. Whilst plant names slipped into my head with no great difficulty, the same cannot be said about the multiplicity of scientific terms and processes. It seems that my hands must be engaged at the same time as my brain so the long mornings in the classroom (they let us out to play in the feilds and glasshouses in the afternoon) were spent in a haze of tedium trying to remember the different soil minerals and the difference between cations and anions.
I would say that love of plants and a desire to share experiences trumps all hugher learning, especially in this era of easily accessed resources. And violets are a good 'tuckaway' plant for me - any little corner can have a violet or a saxifrage or a dianthus planted there...and usually, once in the ground, my job is done - they can simply get on with looking beautiful.

I usually know the latin names but am weakest on the wild flowers. I came to know the latin because I ordered the plants for the herb garden and a number of the best catalogs alphabetize by the latin name. Sometimes the latin is descriptive of the plant or culture which pleases me. Don't know why. What does not please me is botanists changing the latin name. A unique, non-changing name is the whole "reason for being" of the latin name.

Cath

Cath, excellent point. They usually have a reason for the change -- deciding that the genus to which the plant was assigned was an error, or that the original discoverer of record was not the real original discoverer. Still it is disconcerting.

But then I go into a complete sulk when they rearrange my grocery store. I have been known to start shopping in a different store because I am so annoyed that I can no longer pop in and immediately find what I want.

Rosefolly

We're very fortunate here in California to have some truly wonderful growers. One, in particular, has a wholesale catalog which is an absolute hoot to read. The gentleman who writes it is a true "plant nerd" (NO disparagement meant!) who can roll the names and meanings off seemingly at will. One of his rants about creating nonsensical names concerned a Restios whose name was created by someone who generated the bazillian letter long, completely unpronouncable name just to get their name recorded. Reading his rant about the practice had me in stitches each time I read it. I agree that often, changes in nomenclature have appeared to have been made simply to justify the botanists' existence.

I, too, love many of the botanical names, which are sometimes very indicative of their original common uses. Lobelia siphilitica, the great blue Lobelia, is a beautiful plant which was at one time, used to treat the social disease until it was found to be so toxic, more patients were being killed by the cure than healed. Ilex vomitoria was used, you guessed it, to induce vomiting. Sometimes, a plantsman's sense of humor is to be found in the plant name. Lobelia Grape Knee-Hi is a deep purple, knee high Lobelia. I love the pun on the Nehi Grape Soda name. It just tickles me each time I encounter it.

If there is a version of the Sunset Western Garden Book appropriate to your area, get hold of one and just read it. They contain some very interesting tidbits of information which are probably not important for growing the plants, but will add to your enjoyment of them greatly. I was particularly tickled by the description of Equisetum hyemale. It was interesting learning it is a living fossil and was used throughout history to scrub cooking utensils due to the high silica content of the plant. But, it was the caution to be very careful planting it because of its being "seemingly immortal" that tickled me most. I knew it could lay dormant forever before being stimulated back into growth like asparagus. The "immortal" comment said more about how invasive it is in my climate than any other warning could. Kim

Thanks for not minding my comments! I think one reason why Americans in general don't know common names of local plants is that you move so much in your very large country and the local flora varies enormously between regions, even between states in some cases. Over here we tend to stay in the same place for a long time. I have lived in only four places in my life, two in the north, two in the south but the plants were almost the same.

It's long ago now but I just remembered that I went on a field trip to Cherokee Marsh in Wisconsin with my son's first grade and the kids were taught about the plants there. One fluffy cotton like seedhead was used by the Native Americans as stuffing in their babies' swaddling cloths, a kind of diaper. I don't remember the name of the plant. Perhaps the now grown up children do.

Mariannese,

It was probably milkweed, Asclepias syriaca. We used to open the pods and blow the silk like one does dandelion fluff, Taraxacum officinale, but the milkweed is much silkier - fun to touch. I am going to have to put that book on Ohio wildflowers closer to hand. I knew the genera but had to verify the spelling on both species.

Cath

My yard is overrun with violets. To make matters worse, years ago I purchased a Labrador Violet which has also spread throughout the garden.

The wild violets are extremely difficult to control. They grow in the lawn and do not succumb to lawn weed sprays. They throw a lot of seeds.

I also have violas growing wild. I think they are great additions to the garden with the added benefit of blooming deep into winter. There are some blooming now although the single digit temps earlier this week did set them back.

Viola blooming below orange honeysuckle:

{{gwi:246807}}

This is the common violet that is very invasive in my yard. If someone knows the proper name I'd be thankful to have it.

{{gwi:246808}}

cath, I found the plant on a site on ethnobotany. It is broadleaf cattail, Typha latifolia. It is one of the most common wetland plants over here, too.

That's beautiful Seil. It's too dry and hot here on this hill for them to naturalize in my yard, but I don't think I'd be upset if some took to the place.

I love your viola and orange honeysuckle combination, Harry. I used to grow Raven penstemon around the floribunda, Orangeade. The black purple penstemon growing through the dayglow orange roses was quite dramatic. Kim

Oh yes Mariannese, the cattail fuzzes up too.

Cath

Seil,

Yours might be the same as mine, Viola soraria, because our states are close and that violet is widespread. But yours looks lighter in color than mine. You might try your library for a book on Michigan wildflowers just to be sure.

Cath

This post is very enjoyable----I remember visiting my son when he was studying Landscape Architecture at Penn State---He amazed me with his knowledge of all the plants and the Latin names----Much too confusing for my old brain but I do
enjoy these discussions---

Rosefolly---when I was in high school I was lucky enough to have a delightful Latin teacher----she made the class very enjoyable---

Florence

a wild guess as there are hundreds of violets - papillionaceae?

I may have done something very silly!
My neighbour, gave me some rooted cuttings of wild violets.
I have planted them underneath an orange tree. Hopefully, they won't be too rampant there.

If you want to identify your violas, may I suggest that you post the photos of them on the Mediterranean Gardening Society's forum?

http://www.mgsforum.org/smf/index.phphttp://www.mgsforum.org/smf/index.php

There is a regular poster on that forum who is an authority on violas. He has helped me with questions a lot.
Daisy

Sorry. I must have clicked twice on that link.
But,it hasn't come out as a clickable link. I don't know why not.
Daisy

Try this.

Here is a link that might be useful: Viola link

We had tons of violets in our yard in Rockland County NY, and they were really hard to uproot and invasive. They had lovely (non-fragrant!) blooms in spring. Great for picking but no real scent. I always thought the smell of "violet soap" and other things was a myth until I was a college student in France, and the violets I saw there were super-fragrant. Leave it to Europe to have better violets.... :-/

I'd be interested in finding the fragrant type - invasive or no...but I don't know if they'd grow in my blazing hot canyon conditions.

The fragrant violets are Viola odorata. Logee's has them. They grew them in the 19th century for the cut flower trade at a time when violets were very popular. They offer different ones from time to time and have some in their catalog now but if you had a specific one in mind perhaps they could find it for you.

Cath

Oh yes, and Select Seed has them too. I hate it when the fingers work faster than the brain.

Cath

Cath, that's what my mom used to call, "my tongue got tangled over my eye teeth and I couldn't see what I was saying!" We ALL do it, so you're normal! Kim

Cath, thanks so much for that. I'll look it up and see about ordering some. :-)

I've hesitated to say anything because I'd hate to encourage anyone to plant a ground cover that caused them problems. Based on my own experience I feel that the Violets might be more helpful than not. There are a few things in my garden like the Violets that I feel have been beneficial. They seem to have an affect like mulch. Roses growing in them seem to need less water and the weeds are starved out. And they are pretty.

The first time I became aware of wild violets was while in college and living in the Smokie Mountains. Bird's foot violets carpeted a woodland area I used to walk through. It is a favorite memory.

Thanks for that insight, Pam. I do have wild violets that are continually spreading through my garden. Some I leave because I haven't been able to figure out if they are friend or foe. I might leave them alone next year and see what happens.

>I've been battling wild violets in the garden for years. After seeing some posts where others listed violets as a favorite companion, I'm considering just letting them go. If I do, will they overrun my other companion plants?

We've lived here in this house in zone 7b of the Piedmont in NC for forty-some years and the wild violets haven't taken over yet, nor do they appear to be even close to taking over. We have a few nice patches where the amount of sunshine is just right, and we dig them up and try to propagate as many as we can to new spots in the yard.

In an ideal setting, one violet plant can get really large, maybe four or five times as large as you're used to seeing. (Ideal setting means that they're watered and growing in rich organically amended soil, soil close to where there are roses are growing in wonderful dirt being fertilized with bananas, etc. and watered when we haven't had enough rain.) We love our violets, and they're every bit as showy as any plant we've had to buy and pay for. They look really good when not in bloom too, with a nice contrast to the rose leaves.

Our yard is mostly woods, and our violets got started however Nature does it. I've seen the variety listed in a book on NC wildflowers but don't recall the name. Anyway, I'd guess that ours and yours are exactly the same variety: if you're still there for forty or more years, yours probably won't take over either.

Best wishes,
Mary

P.S. I have in mind asking for someone new to the Atlanta area... Do you have a favorite nursery or two there to recommend?

Once my husband and I were horseback riding in the undeveloped end of a huge subdivision. There is a beautiful small creek that runs through there, but we were never able to get to it on the horses due to dense woods. One weekend we rode, and the developer had cleared out an area down to the creek. We rode down to water our horses, and as far as the eye could see, the banks of that little creek were densly carpeted in teeny wild violets in white pink and blue. It was one of the most amazing, beautiful sights I have ever seen. They were nothing like the wild violet I have in my yard. These little beauties were perhaps two inches tall and packed so close together you couldn't see the ground. I tried to go back and get some to see if I could naturalize them along my creek bank, but by the time I was able to get over there, the developer had fenced it off.

The wild violets in my yard are perenial and have an outrageous root system for such a small plant. You can't just yank them out if they pop up where you don't want them. It involves digging. The one nice thing about them is they will colonize under an oak tree among the roots where nothing else can grow. They are quite beautiful when in bloom.

I have the perfumed violets under some of my roses and they don't seem to spread fast and are easy to pull where you don't want them. As they have grown, they have become a pleasure. The roots don't seem overly competitive and now when I was out painting the cut ends of the canes, I could smell the violet perfume in the air as I bent down over my floribundas and shorter shrub roses. I never get to smell rose perfume in the air and my yard is packed with fragrant roses. I think the key is the sand I added to the top layer of the soil. The violets like this very much and don't prosper where the sand is not. I like to think that the foliage also protects the rose leaves from water splashing upwards and spreading disease from the ground. I used to have only brown mulch below my roses but I really love my violets more now. I don't know how much food they take from the roses. I water too much and feed too much anyway and I haven't noticed any distress on the roses. The main problem seems to be slugs wanting to eat my violets. Especially the ones that I have the least number of!

Wild violettes ARE NOT the same thing as the hybrid violets and pansies you find in garden centers. The tiny white and purple flowers are pretty in the spring but they will overgrow everything in their path. They are hands down my worst weed (beating out even dandelions). If you leave them alone they will spread like wildfire and choke out all but the ugliest, most tenacious weeds. And like Old-House-Jim wrote the only way to get rid of them is to bust your A$$ and dig them out. Not an easy chore because the fleshy root lies just underneath the soil surface. Grab any part of the plant but the root and it will snap off leaving the root to regrow everything in a matter of days. To get them out I use a special tool that looks like a long screw driver with flat forked head, which allows me to get underneath and pop up the weed. I hate wild violets.

I can see how these might get out of control, but I do love that these provide a nice ground cover in a shady zone that little else enjoys.

{{gwi:246809}}

Kippy, the plant in your photo is a whole other beast, the Kenilworth ivy (Cymbalaria muralis), which is in the Scrophulariaceae, or snapdragon, family and not a violet. They don't get very out of hand here in Livermore due to the heat, adverse soil conditions, and dryness and have to content themselves with trying to appropriate watered flower pots. I remember a stone or cement wall at the train station in Irvington, New York (on the Hudson River), that was beautifully covered with this species -- it is a classic wall plant and totally adapted to growing in crevices.

I was glad for this posting last year as it alerted me that the innocuous-looking little blue violet that arrived with a pot of iris was probably not so innocent after all. I removed a good-sized patch that had already sprung up, finding, as Molineaux says, that its root system is scary-huge and tenacious. Another close call.

Catspa

I would have included a photo of our little sweet violet, we must be in the wrong zone for them to be happy, cause years after planted she is hardly bigger than the original plant.

It is funny how one thing is a weed in one zone and a prized plant in another (not referring to wild violets)

Like vinca major.

I have violets growing in my gravel drive way hehe I want to dig up a patch and put it in a pot :)

Hearing of people's struggles with violets always reminds me of the last two lines of this poem (see link) which always makes me smile.

I can certainly sympathize with folks who find them invasive - when I lived back in the midwest, they seemed to grow anywhere they wanted. By contrast, out here in my Oregon garden, I have to throw down slug bait to give the violets any chance to bloom...and even then, I'm not often successful. I'm just glad slugs don't eat the roses.

Here is a link that might be useful: Planting the Sand Cherry, by Ann Struthers

Here in Coastal Southern California -- they just ... DIE.

I wish I could get them to grow.
I'm going to try again, tho, with Johnny-Jump-Ups, which are a different thing, and which were always part of my grandmother's garden.

Jeri

I like the violets in my yard because they are pretty and they attract bumblebees. I am not seeing many honeybees, so without humble bumbles, I will have no tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers or squash.

So far, they seem qute easy to uproot, and I have not noticed the entangling root systems mentioned above. They are blue and not scented. The cold winters might be keeping them from taking over.

I love my violets and have been collecting them for many years. Some of the postings on this forum are fascinating. I wonder just which varieties are causing so many problems. I am guessing that the "wild" violets are Viola sororia which have the ability to fling their seeds from upright seed pods. Some forms of V.odorata can be very invasive in the garden. They are best treated a bit like strawberries. Keep removing the runners to encourage strong crowns. Dig them up and renew every 2 or 3 years. Also keep removing seed pods which lie beneath the plant close to the ground. Ants distribute the seeds. To get rid of ants just sprinkle plain talcum powder around their nests. Effective but harmless to the environment.

I have an extremely vigorous scented violet growing thick and massive right up to the canes of 'Safrano'. 'Safrano' doesn't seem to mind at all. I yank some of them out sometimes so the rose can breathe better. Violets can run over delicate little plants, but I have a hard time believing that an established rose would be troubled by them. I don't know whether the leaves right up against the rose canes could provoke canker in wet cold weather. I've been wondering about foliage against canes ever since a run of nasty winters when my Teas got hit really hard with canker.
I'm lucky that the fragrant violets do so well here, as I adore their suave perfume. Have I mentioned that the foliage is violet-scented as well?
Melissa

I have two different types-one type pulls up easily revealing a good sizes root system but the roots are only as thick as a thread. The other type has an iris-like type of root. I dig them up and plant them in a shady area of the yard with the lily-of-the-valley.