The Bee And Me

Viola 'Columbine'

The downpours have finally departed, for the moment at least.  Out in the tubs this afternoon the violas were certainly showing signs of having been well and truly drenched.  At least the gnats are gone for good, the boiled stones having done the trick. 

There are much fewer blooms on the plants now.  Violas 'Maggie Mott', 'Zoe' and 'Rebecca' have ceased blooming altogether, and I don't see any more buds.  'Glenholme', 'Etain', 'Aspasia', 'Irish Molly', 'Columbine' and 'Vita' are still blooming away, but with the exception of 'Etain', the flowers are much less in number than a couple of weeks earlier.

Viola 'Vita' still standing proud

After being cured of its mildew, viola 'Mrs. Lancaster' never bloomed again, for the last two months, in other words, but has spread lushly all over its tub.  'Helen Dillon' is moribund, although I have managed to save a couple of healthy cuttings from it, and no doubt will be able to buy it again in the spring, as it is one of the named violas sold by three local nurseries,  although in two of them it usually bears the name of viola 'Etain'.   I bought the real 'Etain' from Murphy and Wood, a rare plant nursery near Cabinteely in south County Dublin,  and they never make mistakes in their plant names.

I found a mere five seedheads today, on 'Vita', 'Aspasia' and 'Columbine', and brought them inside to mature as I have done with all this summer's seedheads.  I have a nice little container of seeds now;  as I said before, I didn't record the plants they came from, although perhaps in the future I may be more careful.  So if I find a really splendid viola amongst my seedlings next spring, I won't know its ancestry.

The Last Flowers on Viola 'Ivory Queen'

Never mind, such an outcome would be a great thrill anyway.  From what I read in my books, it is not as easy as all that to find a really worthwhile viola seedling which might go into commercial production.  From all my books it is clear that more than a unique colour is necessary; you need those long flower stalks I am always going on about, they need to hold the blooms well clear of the foliage and not let them flop or lie along the plant; flowers should be produced freely, that is, more than just one or two here and there; also importantly, the viola should flower over a long period as all the best named varieties do.

Then there is the worry that a plant which starts off in fine fettle will lose its enthusiasm and start producing much smaller flowers, something I have witnessed myself and have read warnings about.  An added bonus is scent - I confess I much prefer violas with a noticeable perfume.  This is more often than not, I think, a feature of the best violas.  My Viola cornuta minor has a beautifully strong scent, and I am really curious to see if this is true of the new cornutas my gardening friend sent recently and which I mentioned last week.

'Irish Molly' with mixed violas

So all the fun lies ahead, the seed sowing, the nourishing and cherishing of the seedlings, the testing of their qualities.  I suppose the solitary bumble bee I met bobbing around the tubs today might well feel a similar anticipation - sadly, I may never know.

Gnat Attack

Viola 'Ivory Queen'

The rain went away and the sun came back - it is still very warm, around 18 degrees celsius today;  the rain brought with it a plague of compost gnats - which I have only had on houseplants before.  I am treating the ones in the tubs in the same way as I would on houseplants;  I take away the top of the soil - difficult where I have cuttings in the same tub as the mother plant - this is to get rid of any eggs - and then I boil up some decorative stone, wait for it to cool and pour it gently into the tubs.  This work will be done tomorrow if it stays fine, and that should be an end to troublesome gnats.  The gnats got going when I appeared - it is amazing how 'with it' they seemed to be, and recognised the tub owner immediately, but there were little white larvae investigating the air also, and no doubt they will have donned their shiny black mini-jackets by the morning.  They can create havoc with the roots of my violas, though, so I await the morning impatiently.  Meanwhile my naturalist son wants to take a look and make a firm identification ( www.gardenofireland.com), and then gardening son will do the necessary work.  The only drawback is the smiling TV weather forecaster, who said that rain would spread from the west countrywide overnight (it is, after all, damp old Ireland), so we may have to wait a few hours before we can wave goodbye to our unwelcome guests.  The cure should, however, be instantaneous.

Viola 'Irish Molly'

Viola 'Glenholme'

Violas 'Maggie Mott' and 'Helen Dillon' are the worst affected.  Viola 'Glenholme', very close to these two, gleams serenely, and 'Irish Molly', another near neighbour, has also escaped.  'Glenholme' is a wonderful little viola, which holds itself very upright over low-growing foliage; neither wind nor rain seem to affect it.  This viola is supposed to be a seedling from Viola 'Ivory White', and indeed I see the similarity myself in the shape of the flowers, as well as in the sturdy constitution of both.

Two Catalogues from Rodney Fuller

Years ago in Garden News, a British garden paper still going strong, I found an advertisement for a little viola nursery in the UK, owned by Rodney Fuller.  Rodney issued lovely little homemade catalogues, with pressed violas from his stock adhered to the front; here are pictures of a couple of them, from 1983 and 1984.  Those were the days when the European Union was only at an early stage, and you still couldn't bring plants from the UK into Ireland unless the nursery provided a phytosanitary certificate proving the cleanliness and freedom from disease of the plants.  I had a correspondence with Rodney which I treasure to this day, in which he explained how uneconomic his business would be if he had to pay for the inspections necessary to get these certificates.  He joked that one day he would arrive on my doorstep with a bundle of violas for me, but we both knew we were not into lawbreaking.  I recently purchased Rodney's wonderful book on pansies, violas and violettas - of all my viola books I think it is the best.  I will take a picture of it for you for the next blog.  I was very sad to hear some time ago of  Rodney's death - he seemed a gentle soul, and certainly loved his violas.

I will let you know in a few days how it went with the compost gnats.  I just thought of something else - for readers in the U.S., I know it's hard to find named violas, or so I have been told.  Last night I came across a website called Sequim.com, which has quite a nice selection of them for sale - they say they are just putting together their 2014 list at the moment.  2014 !  Spring !  Now that is something to look forward to  :)