Ones to try
These spring-flowering jewels bring both timeless beauty and elegant fragrance to the garden
Violets are one of the first flowers to bloom in spring, providing welcome signs of life after a long winter. Their diminutive flowers glisten like jewels against a backdrop of bare soil. These inhabitants of woodland and ancient hedgerows might appear delicate, but any plant that flowers at this time of year has to be tough to cope with the vagaries of the weather, which can still bring spells of frost or flurries of snow.
There are several species of violet native to the British Isles, but the dog violet and the sweet violet are the most common, although the latter is becoming increasingly hard to find due to habitat loss. You can, however, guarantee a sighting by growing them in your garden, where they make great plant partners for spring bulbs.
Sweet violets
Viola odorata was grown by the Ancient Greeks and Romans who used it in medicine and to flavour food, and during the medieval period herbalists used it to treat a variety of ailments, but in Britain the peak of interest in sweet violets came in the 19th and early part of the 20th centuries. They were initially cultivated around London, but as the city expanded, production was moved to the south west, where in the counties of Devon, Dorset and Cornwall they were often grown in orchards in the shade of fruit trees as an additional crop for farmers. The flowers would be picked and sent by train to Covent Garden flower market where they were often sold as buttonholes or posies. The essential oil was also extracted to make sweet-smelling toiletries and perfumes.
Typically sweet violets are either a rich shade of purple or pure white, but during the Victorian and Edwardian eras there was a craze among plant breeders to create new varieties, resulting in longer stems and flowers in various shades of pink or purple, pale blue or yellow, some with delicate veining and others with speckles.
Common dog violet
Viola riviniana, with its small, deep purple blooms, is the violet you’re most likely to come across on a country walk. The ‘dog’ in its common name refers to its lack of scent rather than anything to do with the animal; this term was a way to distinguish it from the scented species. Despite its lack of aroma it’s a good early source of nectar for insects an
