Intriguing Violas

The necessity of getting ready for a day or so away from home this week has limited my time for the viola tubs;  however, a quick visit outside in a strong breeze shows that there are still blooms on Violas ' Etain', ' Vita'  and 'Columbine'.  Not that many, to be sure, but still they beam at me and bow cheerfully in the breeze.

On the left, Viola 'Maggie Mott', in company with
Violas 'Ivory Queen' and 'Glenholme'

Four ladies, Violas 'Mrs. Lancaster', 'Helen Dillon', 'Vita' and
at the back, Violetta 'Zoe'.

I was remembering when I first saw Viola 'Maggie Mott', a root with flowers all wrapped up with some pelargonium cuttings sent from England years ago.  That first sight of this lovely, scented viola has remained with me.  It is very old, appearing first in commerce in 1902, and several seedlings from Maggie appeared later, including Charlotte, Emily, Jane and May Mott.  Sad for me that when, having lost Maggie Mott for some time I bought her again this year, she flowered for a mere couple of months.  Perhaps I will do better next year, or maybe this is a type of behaviour others have noticed also.  Incidentally, very many violas bear feminine names; by far the majority of viola names, it seems to me, are those given to girls - there are a few masculine names, such as Lord Nelson, Mark Talbot, James Pilling, none of which I have ever seen, although I have certainly heard of the last.  I wonder if the combination of delicate name and viola have made some varieties more saleable, as the commonest varieties to be come across in garden centres, at least in Ireland and in my personal experience, seem to be Irish Molly, Molly Sanderson, Rebecca, Columbine and Helen Dillon.  Or is Columbine a feminine name, I ponder?  Was there a character in Shakespeare of that name or am I imagining it?

Two  photos of pansies taken by my son in a local garden centre really caught my fancy.  I was reminded of a crowd of onlookers at Croke Park for the hurling final, or perhaps waiting for some kind of popular spectacle, and the flowers all seem to be chatting and socialising in a very happy way.

The book 'Pansies, Violas and Sweet Violets' by Elizabeth Farrar, published in 1989, gave me a couple of smiles.  She writes in a very whimsical way, though she does know her stuff, but it is obvious that her main interest is in sweet violets, as she races through the first section, on pansies and violas, to get to the much larger part of the book which is devoted to violets.  One very interesting piece of information she mentions, which I may have referred to before, is about a way to measure the hardiness of violas:"It is worth noting that the horn at the back of the Viola flower is an indication of perenniality and hardiness; the longer the horn, the more robust the plant."  I must test this out for myself over the winter.


Elizabeth Farrar says of the firm of J.W. Boyce, who specialise in pansies, that a customer reported "that their Soham Surprise Mixture was so good that even the cat admired them."  In a section devoted to the division of violas, she opines that "Even experienced gardeners can be timorous about interfering with a plant's nether regions...."  but the most piquant statement she makes is about the growing of pansies for exhibition and how it is a specialist activity - "There are a number of publications, listed in the bibliography, that cover all aspects of this absorbing and controversial hobby."  So that is what all those pansies are gossiping about in the garden centre !

Autumn Dreams

Garden Seedling, now lost

I was taking cuttings of several of the violas today, and when lifting the foliage of some, I found lovely healthy little seedlings had sprung up underneath; obviously the seeds don't need a great deal of light to germinate.


A Semi-Double Seedling

This is part of the joy of growing violas - taking cuttings, collecting seed, and dreaming of next spring when these new plants will be appearing.  In the case of the seedlings, there is all the anticipation of seeing the first flowers, and deciding what violas may have parented them.  I am not very organised yet when I collect the seed heads, I don't write down what tub they were growing in or the name of their mother plant.  This is because I am in this for the fun, not for the sole purpose of hybridising.

Black and Purple Seedling

I haven't cut back any of my plants yet, as I am truly reluctant to part with all those glowing flowers, not to mention to thwart the efforts of all the little flies and bees who are visiting them.  Today is a beautiful summer's day in autumn - sunshine, blue skies, temperatures over 20° celsius.



Seedling with flowers of a lovely colour, now tiny

I am posting pictures of four seedlings I had from the last two years.  At least two, the very dark ones, probably had as their parent Molly Sanderson, who then fled with the harsh winter of 2011; I think that viola may not be very hardy, and this impression is furthered by the fact that both these seedlings survived only a year.  I named none of them, as I think it is better to wait and see how the plants will turn out, how sturdy they are, how floriferous and so forth, before endowing them with any title.  The wisdom of this is borne out by the fact that the semi-double viola produced all single flowers in its second year, two seedlings as I said did not survive, and the last of the four, although still here, and as colourful, has produced only very small flowers through the whole summer, after showing in springtime the lovely medium-sized ones it first appeared with two years ago, and which it bore all last year quite effortlessly.