Gardens: a celebration of sweet violets

fter nature’s winter palette of grey and brown, I crave the first signs of life, colour, anything that gives me a hint spring is on its way. The tiny flowers of the sweet violet (Viola odorata), one of the earliest of our native plants to bloom, do just that. They’re not showy blooms; you’ll have to be sharp-eyed to spot them, hunkered down among the leaf litter of a deciduous woodland or tucked away at the base of a stout ancient hedge. Getting a whiff of their sweet perfume is trickier, requiring crouching down on all fours. Their diminutive size and delicacy belies the fact that these brave blooms appear when our weather is at its most fickle, from late winter through to May (we’re more likely to experience snow at Easter than at Christmas, according to the Met Office).
Sweet violets are steeped in history and folklore, prized for their fragrance and medicinal uses. Lauded by the ancient Greeks and adored by Napoleon and the Empress Joséphine, their popularity, particularly as a cut flower, reached a height in Victorian and Edwardian times. Dorset, Devon and Cornwall were centres of sweet violet growing and production peaked in the 1930s. You can still see the remains of walled flower fields, known as quillets, on the western tip of Cornwall, where violets were cultivated to send to Covent Garden market. In France, the quest for new varieties with strong perfume, long stems and large flowers led to a craze in plant breeding.
Catching a glimpse of them in the wild is rarer today due to habitat loss. Grow them alongside snowdrops, wood anemones, primroses and lily of the valley to create a piece of spring woodland of your own. And, if you fancy something that packs more punch, or like to grow cut flowers for your home (the best and easiest way to appreciate their perfume), there are a host of stunning cultivars, with larger flowers held on longer stems in a variety of colours.

How to grow violets

Recreate the conditions they love in the wild. They need winter and spring sunshine but summer shade, so the ideal spots are under deciduous trees and shrubs. They used to be grown commercially in orchards, providing fruit growers with a spring crop of blooms to sell before the autumn harvest of apples and pears. As long as the ground doesn’t dry out, grow among herbaceous perennials, since any summer planting will provide sufficient shade.
Sweet violets thrive in moist but well-drained soils. Incorporate plenty of leaf mould into your soil, and where drainage is a problem add a little grit to the planting hole. A sprinkling of mycorrhizal fungi on the roots can help them settle in. As they become established, they’ll form clumps, providing useful ground cover with their pretty heart-shaped leaves.
They spread, using runners, in the same way as strawberries. They can be propagated easily from these, as they’ll form roots where they come into contact with the soil. Remove these runners in spring, as they divert energy from blooming. Deadheading prolongs the flowering season as long as possible.
Violets will self-sow, but growing your own from seed can be tricky as the seed needs to be fresh. Specialist growers gather seed in the summer and send it out immediately. Sow these seeds into trays filled with a free-draining seed compost as soon as you receive them. A spell of cold weather is needed to break the dormancy, so leave the trays in a cool greenhouse or cold frame over winter. Seedlings should start to emerge in February or March.

What to grow: heritage violets

Where to buy

For the true species of V. odorata and its white version, try nurseries that specialise in wild flowers, such as Herefordshire-based PlantWild. Groves Nurseries, who hold National Collection status for sweet violets, keep many heritage varieties alive and breed new violets. Also try Devon Violet Nursery and Plants For Shade.