The wild violets that grow throughout my mountain holler are in full bloom. I love all the colorful variations that can be found. The royal purple certainly demands your attention but, the white petals with purple veins is awful pretty too.
The ones in the photo are hugged up to the back of our house. I have a long row of miniature hostas growing there and the wild violets have scrooched up close to them.
As is typical for this time of the year, we’ve had several mornings with big frosts and even a hard freeze about a week ago.
Just before the freeze I noticed the hostas barely peeking their spears up through the ground. I figured the low temperature would turn them to slime over night and they’d have to re-emerge when warm weather returned. But the cold spell didn’t bother them at all. Maybe it was the protection of the house or perhaps the warmth of the violets.
Wild violets can run rampant if left unchecked. I let them grow where they will in the yard but try to at least beat them back our of our garden beds. Of course leaving them in the yard means they will certainly continue to infiltrate the beds. I suppose their lovely blooms are payment enough and I’ve always found their little cheery faces hard to dislike.
Here’s a few violet posts from the archives:
Last night’s video: Working in the Garden Does My Spirit Good.
Tipper
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Hi Tipper!
My daughter has been making Violet jelly for years, and last year she started making Violet lemonade! So delicious, my grandsons will pick as many flower heads as they have to just to have some it sure is delicious!
Sally Jo
Oh Tipper!!!
I just saw the video about baby Ira. I love his name. My PaPa Montgomery’s name was Ira Franklin, so I was really happy to hear his name. I know you are so happy and are snuggling him to pieces. I am just so happy for you all! So much fun to look forward to and imagine having two little tykes to chase after. XOXO
Just got back home after a 60 miles of running around shopping trip. I passed by an old abandoned sharecropper home place and there was these wild purple violets all around the old driveway. A lot of daffodils were also in the yard. I remember back in the early 60’s when someone lived there.
I remember my grandmother growing African violets. I heard these are hard to cultivate. I tried keeping the blooms on orchids but it didn’t work for me. My aunt kept a menagerie of orchids and my mom has a garden. I once grew a slew of Basil. I had so much I didn’t think to make pesto out of it.
I haven’t heard “scrooched up” for many a year, and had never seen it written until today. Did you ever scrooch up with a bedmate to keep warm on a wintry night? I have.
I used to make violet jelly every year when my kids were still at home. They smell sooo good and are usually paired with the sound of the chirpers (tadpoles) at night
They are lovely, but they can take over the yard for sure if one lets them. We use to have some, but our yard mostly has those tiny wild strawberry looking plants that a previous neighbor told me were called snake berries. He said it’s because snakes like to eat them since the berries are so tiny. I’ve not seen but maybe three snakes in our yard in the past 25 years we’ve lived here, so I’m thinking maybe he was pulling my leg…so to speak. I’d much rather have the pretty wild violets than the tiny wild strawberry plant, simply because they are pretty. Besides, I see the berries and get mad we can’t eat them. They are just to tiny to try to pick. I tried when we first moved here and I even tried to get them to grow bigger, thinking they were actually strawberry plants, but they aren’t and you can’t eat the berries.
I don’t see any wild violets yet, but there is some kind of purple flowering plant life growing in our grass in a few places. Not sure what it is, but it’s pretty. I also saw several dandelions blooming around our patio already. I loved hanging out during your lawn and garden tour last evening—you are so good at making us feel like we are right there with ya. Being outdoors in the fresh air really does uplift my spirit and mood—watching you enjoy your yard does it too. The photo of the violets is just beautiful.
Tipper, when you remove those seedlings from your Solo cups and plant them, use alcohol prep pads to wipe off the Sharpie labeling you did. That way, the cups are ready for use again next year without fear of confusion. You can get the alcohol prep pads at Amazon for about $5 for 200. We mark our freezer containers and sealed bags with Sharpie ink and wipe the markings away with the pads when we wash them.
We too have wild violets in our yard and I love them! They are a sure sign of spring. I especially like the deep purple ones like the picture in this post. This year we seem to have many more of the white/pale purple ones you showed in your video last night. They are all beautiful.
I don’t know how much this has to do with wild violets but it is forecast to be 37 degrees in Greenville, SC tonight I live in southern Greenville County about 30 miles from Main Street. It will always 3-5 degrees colder here. Sure to be a frost tonight, I will need to cover up Grandmother’s peony flower. Anything else will alright. Tipper had better cover her tomato plants she has set out!
Wild violets are so pretty, and I love seeing all the beauty springtime brings. I also enjoyed watching Matt turn the ground with the new plow. Hearing the humming of the tractor and seeing the turning of the dirt brings back wonderful memories. Thank you for the tours 🙂
Absolutely beautiful! Take care and God bless ❤️
I love your yard and garden tours. The hostas and violets are my favorites. I need to plant some nasturtiums!
Wild violets are good for so much more than their beauty. Tipper’s recipe for violet jelly is so easy and delicious. If the kids get bored, challenge them to a rooster fight where you let them win and they can be entertained for hours. Maybe we should change the name of the game that has been around for a hundred years so that we are not accused of promoting violence in the opinions of some sensitive folks.
We seem to have more violets than ever before in our yard- both purple and white. They’re even growing through a crack in our driveway. There used to be Johnny Jump Ups here and there, too. They were a favorite of my mom’s and I wish I had some now because they’re also known as Heart’s Ease and my heart misses her. The violet’s leaves remind me to ask you something, Tipper- are you familiar with a plant that grows in wooded areas known (by my family anyway) as Heart Leaf? It’s low to the ground, with a shiny almost waxy leaf, and when you crush it you smell Teaberry gum. When it blooms, the flower is not showy- it’s a dark maroon and smells like rotting meat to attract flies, which are its pollinators. I believe it’s also known as Wild Ginger and it always delights me to find it, taking me right back to when I was a kid in Mamaw and Papaw’s front yard.
Melanie-I am 🙂
We grew up picking these violets from the hill in front of my grandmother’s house. When we moved here 22 years ago, I planted these violets in front of my house. My grands now pick them in the Spring. I love these sweet flowers and the history they hold for us. It won’t be long until your grands will be picking them and bringing them to you! Have a wonderful day! Blessings to you all.
Violets are growing all over our neighborhood. I love them.
The violets are so pretty bunched together. Ours haven’t bloomed yet but when they do, they are strewn throughout the yard. The hostas which are planted on the northwest side of the house are up about ten inches. I see a few dandelions have bloomed in our yard. I was able to clean up one side of a flower bed the other day and I will put mulch on it. I want to do the other bed, but it has rained the last couple of days. We probably won’t rototill our garden and plant for another two-three weeks. We usually plant near the end of April. My mother-in-law loved African violets. She had about ten or 15 in her house. I watched the video, and it does my spirit good also to be outdoors and plant.
I love wild violets too. I don’t have many on my hill because it drains. I’ve heard they like dampness. But I can walk a little and find them. There are more purple here but also some of the white ones you describe. Randy, that sounds exactly like my maternal grandmother. She had many African violets too. They have the fuzzy leaves. I remember her sticking a single leaf stem in a tiny snuff glass to root so she could share. Years ago I had some of those plants but a house fire took care of them and I never replaced them. Some people can grow them better than others and they didn’t grow well for me anyway. I’ve seen some that are huge. But they usually need warmth and I’ve often wondered how they were kept in the old cold houses.
I have the same “problem” of violets all over the yard and in every place in the garden I do not turn. I transplanted about 30 clumps of them out of the garden into a particularly difficult spot in the “yard”. The middle path through the garden has purple violets all along it now as if it had been my idea. They are just too pretty to remove.
Are you going to be making violet jelly?
Papaw-I’d love to if I can find the time to do it 🙂
I think the violets are the prettiest spring flower. they never fail to brighten my day
I remember wild violets growing all throughout our yard and woods, and white ones as well. My mother had planted hostas down one side and throughout the woods in front which also bloomed purple. Our yard was beautiful, wild, and lush, and spring memories are rich in its colors. It brings tears to my eyes thinking on it. Same with your last video.
Why Id rather have wild violets any day everywhere than a well manicured perfect lawn! It’s not even a contest who the winner is on this one! The older I get, the less I care what anybody thinks and I sure ain’t out “to keep up with the Joneses” and what all they got or ain’t got. I say wild violets get a hey day once a year after a bitter relentless winter to show themselves quite worthy in God’s beauty and a renewed promise that comes with spring each year! Who can add one thing to His Perfection? Nobody that’s who! Speaking of lovely wild violets, my prayers and blessings to each of the Wilson’s and Pressley’s this God given another day of life!!!
I had enjoyed the lad several posts and videos! I also let the violet go where they will! They are so beautiful! I’m so happy for Mat and all of you for the tractor and implements!!! I continue to hold all in prayer. God bless you and yours❤❤
I too love the violets. They’re so lovely. Ours haven’t started blooming yet but they’re close. We’ve seen one or two early dandelions and the little purple dead nettle is blooming.
I especially liked your violets I. the video last night.
My mother loved all flowers but I think violets were her favorite. I don’t remember her having any wild violets but she had small pots of violets throughout her home that looked like the ones in the picture. I might be wrong, I think she called them African violets. Working with her flowers both inside and outside was one of her greatest joys in the later years of her life. When her friends came to visit she would walk them around the yard showing her flowers to them.
African Violets can’t survive outside here. Their blooms resemble wild violets but they are not even real violets.