Producing masses of colourful flowers, these versatile and easy to grow beauties deserve a place in your borders

Modest, alluring and versatile, Viola odorata, or sweet violet, is a small, hardy, herbaceous perennial that tumbles and scrambles close to the ground, forming dense clumps of dainty, heart-shaped, gr

Picotee-pink-edged, large flowers that look at you from a tall stem. Followed by marbled evergreen leaves. A sterile cultivar from Rodney Davey, it flowers prolifically as its energy is saved for flow

The sweet violet, Viola odorata, may be a diminutive flower, but its small, slightly asymmetrical, pansy-like flowers are highly fragrant. They open in early spring before most plants have even though

A s with so many things in life, ...

Mike Palmer celebrates the seasonal awakening of our gardens from their winter slumbers with trees, shrubs, perennials and bulbs to get seriously excited about