If you get rid of them, I will be amazed! I have fought them for years........if you put them in the compost, bury them deep or cover the pile somewhere with a tarp and the heat will kill them. I have done that with thistles successfully.

Be sure to watch the beds closely and when you see a tiny violet rearing its head, get it up. They throw off millions of little bulblets at the base and it is almost impossible to get them all.

Violets are all over my place. Fortunately I don't have to worry too much about them in my flower beds.

I have my compost pile in the corner of the garden area under the shade of a huge pecan tree so I don't have to be concerned about bermuda taking it over. Sometimes strange things do grow out of the pile if it's left undisturbed. Last year it was a huge 25 ft long Butternut squash. Right on!

Now, this year, not in, but close to the compost pile an interesting plant with humongous round leaves started up. I didn't recognize it as anything familiar, and out of curiousity I allowed it to grow just to see what would develop. Then I noticed a few days ago that it started developing buds that looked like thistle buds. Yikes! Then it started to bloom, and sure enough looked like thistle. If it had been a decorative thistle as grown in English cottage gardens, I might have left it.....but anyways, to be on the safe side I cut it down with my machete. It was almost three inches at the base! It was very curious, because I thought that ALL thistles had ragged or jagged leaves on them. This one didn't.

Barbara

I treat all plants that are invasive like bermuda grass to the same trip to the dump. LOL, they go in the trash at my house.

Moni

Well, I am jealous. I like violets, but we hardly have any here. The few we have sprout in the woods or on the edge of the woods, but there are not many and they've never tried to move out of their little area. Maybe it is the soil or maybe it is that we get hot and dry so quickly.

Patty, the heat should kill them.

Barbara, Could your thistle have been a centaurea? Some of them look remarkably like thistles, but not prickley like them. Or, maybe milk thistle? It has somewhat rounded leaves, although you probably would have mentioned the white veining on the leaves? And I don't think milk thistle is native here, but who knows?

Moni, that's what I used to do with bermuda grass too. Finally, though, I just started tossing it on one of the 'permanent' compost piles I use to combat erosion. If it survives and grows, which it seldom does in our heat and dry climate, then it can spread and help stop the erosion in the areas that are at risk.

I did have bermuda sprout once or twice in a regular compost pile, and I agree that's the last thing we want to have happen in our piles.

Dawn

Dawn...it beats the heck out of me. I've never seen anything like it in Oklahoma.

I looked online at the centaurea and milk thistle images, and it wasn't either one. This thing had gotten at least 3 ft tall before I cut it down. If it had been milk thistle I would have liked to keep it. It was growing in shade of all things.

It was just curious. Like you've said before, our birds bring things in and deposit them. Who knows where this weird plant came from or what it was. Whatever it was, it had huge rounded, not jagged leaves, the size of dinner plates...but it's history now, unless I didn't destroy all the seeds in that thistle-like blossom that formed.

Bermuda is a scourge around here. I'd like to eventually get rid of all of it if I could, but I can understand needing something for erosion control in certain areas.
We just don't want the stuff in our gardens! I'd rather fight weeds anytime than "strangle grass"!

Barbara

Here is a link that might be useful: Milk Thistle Image

Not only do violets spread by the roots, they also make seed.

I have fought violets since we moved here. Once they get established, they are very hard to pull up. It's better to dig them and throw them away, dirt and all. I've seen violet overgrowth so bad that their roots actually covered the dirt.

I suppose if you put them deep enough in the compost pile, they might decompose. But my attempts at composting them have resulted in them coming up by the zillions in the compost heap. It seems even if you pull them up and throw them on the sidewalk in the blazing heat, they still revive and take root if they manage to get back on soil. Arrrrggggghhhhh! Bermuda's pretty but evil sister!

Dawn, if you really, really want some I'll be glad to send you some. I have two kinds, one is a dark blue-purple and the other is white with purple. They're not blooming now so it would be hard to tell which you'd be getting though. Might be better to wait till next spring, if you really, really want some.

Ilene,

Thanks for the offer, but I figure if they "wanted" to live up here in our area above the woodlands, they would have migrated here on their own. I don't think any of my soil outside the woodland is right for them. Our red clay around the house and veggie garden is too clay-ey for them, I think, and the band of sandy soil near the pecan tree/chicken coop is too sandy.

The woodland soil is humusy and rich and holds moisture really, really well, so it probably is just what they want. I sound like Goldilocks, don't I? None of my soil is "just right". I've tried transplanting other plants out of the woods and they don't like my non-woodsy soil either, even when I put them in shady spots. I'll just admire the violets on the edge of the woods and not worry about them anywhere else. Maybe one of the days, we'll have enough well-improved soil up here around the house that violets will just start popping up everywhere. (If I am going to dream, I'm gonna dream big.)

I love violets, but they are more suited to the soil and climate y'all have there in northern OK than what we have here in southern OK. Our climate seems ideal for bermuda, Johnson grass, sand love grass (despite its name, it grows in clay here), crab grass, prickly pear cactus, greenbrier, cedar, etc. Do I get cute little violets everywhere? Nope. Do y'all want violets? Not especially. Do you get them? Yep. Aren't the gardening gods cruel?

Dawn

They sure are... They are very cruel - what ever you have is not what you are really wanting and what you really want it never going to be what you have ready there on hand. I have tried and tried to get several native plants to grow only to see them being a thug elsewhere but they want nothing to do with my yard - I think it is the care and over pampering we give them maybe?

Odd. I like violets. When I got my irises, they came with some violets in the dirt around them and I left them there on purpose, hoping they'd survive and spread. They make a good green mulch under taller plants. But maybe I'm just mis-led by the violets I had in St. Paul. Yeah, they spread a lot, but they never get very big... pretty much the sort of ground cover I want. And my husband likes them, which is pretty rare. Maybe the Oklahoma violets are worse?

I doubt it - then again I love Ox-eye daisy - but I have never had it take over a bed and it just moves a little bigger each year I have it here.