There is no treat-and-forget solution where it has been well-established in a lawn. It requires constant vigilence like being a lawn security guard. I've tried the oxalis-destroyer but fear it has made matters worse. The problem is that the chemical stresses out the lawn grass while it is attempting to control its targeted foe and a stressed lawn makes it that much easier for any weed to take hold. So you may need to just live with a slightly brown lawn until the violets have succumbed. Fall treatment followed by the following Spring is the best success and figure on a few years followed by close monitoring and more treatments when new eruptions occur. Use a surfactant to help break the wax (yes, the violet leaves have been preparing for our attack for thousands of years). And before you violet sympathizers begin to suffer the effrontery of eradicating this natural botanical... try to understand and sympathize with the lawn maintainers. Homeowners who spend years planting and caring for a lawn (in this context, "lawn" means grass!) resent any invader that seeks to undo all their efforts and expense which created the lawn in the first place. It's not the occasional tuft of violets that is at issue but rather an entire lawn covered to the point where the grass has been all but eliminated. If we wanted a field covered with violets we would have planted them in the first place. And trying to bag clippings is near impossible because violet leaves do not shear like grass and discharge through the chute. They create a slurry of green sludge that must be removed from the bag by hand or with a trowel. There is a difference between coexisting and invading. Wild violets are about as invasive a weed as there is and confounds lawn care all over the country. They have ceased to be "cute" additions to a cultured environment.

African Violets grow as very well-defined rosettes on one short stem. (This is what is meant by rosette, from Wikipedia.) In all african violets, there is a dormant growth bud at the base of every single leaf, and that bud that can grow into a second rosette. When the plant gets to a certain size, one or more of them will do just that. When an a additional rosette grows to be the same size as the main one, it will push the "parent" rosette to one side to form a single plant with 2 rosettes. Picture a single rosette plant as a tostada, facing upwards. A plant with two rosettes will be like two tacos pushed against each other. Where they meet, the leaves/taco shell does point straight up. You can leave your african violets like that for a long time, if you want. It doesn't hurt them; they still share a root system and nutrients. But if you really want to restore the symmetrical circular rosette, you can look underneath the leaves and see where the stems come together. You should also be able to figure out which is the main stem and which is the "branch." You can take some skinny medical scissors or a very narrow knife and cut off the "branch," if you can clearly make out where it is. Make sure the one you cut is really the branch. When you pull the branching rosette off and separate it from the first one, you will be able to see that it looks like a second african violet plant. You can set that in a bowl of water (facing upwards as much as possible) and it will grow roots - much quicker than a single leaf cutting grows roots - and then you can plant it. On the original plant, there will probably be some bare stem at the base now; it will resemble a "trunk" underneath the rosette of leaves sort of like a palm tree. To restore the original look, you can take that plant out of the pot, scrape some of the dirt off from the bottom of the roots (its ok if you disturb some of the roots), set the plant back in the pot, and put fresh dirt under the leaves on top of the roots. It's tough get the dirt in and can end up breaking leaves, so it's best to let it dry out a bit and get somewhat wilty. A freshly-watered plant is very brittle. African violets will continually produce branching rosettes if they get to a certain size. You can potentially end up with 2, 3, 4, etc rosettes on one plant. If you leave them there, they will gradually get far enough apart that you will clearly be able to see the well-defined rosettes again - there will just be two instead of one - so when you lift, scrape and bury the plant like I described, you will have two pretty symmetrical african violets in a single pot.

Hi! I notice most of this thread is 9 years old and i wonder if you folks are still here, reading this discussion makes me happy. I was researching if i could transplant iris, black eyed Susan, bergamot, and coneflowers into my damp sunny front yard violet patch and expect them to thrive, and I'm going to try it! @Hu of 5 months ago, that would be really pretty, columbine with violets. IDK if it would work but I will try it too after the hardy stuff establishes! My goal is to make a privacy screen so I feel less exposed in my front yard. I want it dense with always something blooming. Right now I have a big forsythia on one end, hollies on the other, and a 100yo rose bush in the middle. I want to be able to put a hammock between the apple trees without my neighbors leering at me. Zone 6 NE KY!

RD, All the white violets of Tennessee have purple veining on the lower 3 petals; the small foliage may be a function of it being early in the season. The yellow throat is a problem... All the North American violets with yellow-throated flowers (apart from V. canadensis which we have now dismissed) are more western in distribution; eg. Vv. ocellata, cuneata and scopulorum. Some photos and/or description and measurements of flowers, leaves and stems might help; it would also be useful to know if the lateral petals are bearded or not (towards the throat); and is there any scent? I don't suppose by "yellow throat" you are referring to the connective rather than the petals? Clutching at straws... Do any of the photos at the link help? Have a look at V. bicolor especially, though it is a pansy rather than a violet. V. mackloskeyi and its subspecies pallens occur in Tennessee, but (like I said) they do not have a yellow throat. I should point out that I have grown only a few of these violets, so in saying they do not have yellow throats, I am going largely on the literature. Mike Here is a link that might be useful: Viola gallery at USDA Plants Database