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Donna VanBuecken

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Violets

May 4, 2021

One of a variety of colors of violets (Viola spp) that grow at my homestead. There are nearly 90 species in North America and more than 500 species worldwide.

With the overwhelming abundance of ephemerals,  the spring violets are going “gangbusters!”

The E-Mail

The other day I got an e-mail  from someone who wanted to know how to get rid of the wild violets in her lawn. How she “hated” them and tried to eradicate them from her lawn. How the violets just “won’t go away.”

The wood violet (Viola papilionacea) is Wisconsin’s state flower and an important host plant for the fritillary butterflies.

Herbicide-Resistant Violets

Did you know that chemical herbicides seldom work on wild violets. So don’t waste your money and risk your health. If you can’t make peace with them, the real option is physical removal — and sometimes they grow back. If you have wild turkeys in your area, they might eat the leaves and fleshy roots.

One of my favorite violets, the confederate violet with the beautiful combination of white petals with a blue core.

You Can Eat Them!

The flowers are the source of rutin, a hard-to-find antioxidant that strengthens capillary walls, preventing or reversing the visible effects of varicose and spider veins. The best way to enjoy them is on top of a green salad. Pick just the flowers, not the leaves.

Teeny, tiny white violets on my hunting land are too small to capture with my camera.

Fauna

I couldn’t help replying to her e-mail about the butterflies and the bees. Was she was aware that the violet was the host plant for fritillary butterflies? The host plant is a large, colorful butterfly that looks a lot like the monarch. They attract native bees and other insects, and the ants, part of the distribution, seek the soft appendages of the seeds.

I have several different colors of violets in my yard. Whether they’re native or not, I love the color they bring to my lawn and woodland and prairie areas.

There are many host plants for butterflies.

Ezra Brainerd’s book Violets of North America published in 1921 is available online.

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Comments

  1. Lori Poehls says

    May 5, 2021 at 1:16 pm

    I love love the violets in my lawn! I purposely planted wood violets in a flower bed, hoping they’d spread. There are a lot of ‘wild violets’ in my grass this year and I’m looking forward to many more in the years to come. They are so pretty with yellow of the dandelions.

    Reply
    • Donna VanBuecken says

      May 5, 2021 at 2:27 pm

      I agree completely, Lori — Donna

      Reply
  2. Cynthia Jane Donahey says

    May 6, 2021 at 10:01 am

    Violets are edible. We were hiking in the Wayne National years ago. We found this homestead site with huge purple violets, along Wayne Trace. We had been told about homesites by an old resident of the area. You can put violets (purple or blue) in vinegar and make jeweled vinegar. At Versailles, they added corn syrup or maple syrup to jeweled vinegar with purple allium individual flowers.

    Reply
    • Donna VanBuecken says

      May 12, 2021 at 7:33 am

      I have of candied violets, Cynthia, but I have never hear of jeweled vinegar. I just searched the web and I see that we would like it! — Donna

      Reply
  3. Marcia Goodrich says

    May 7, 2021 at 8:36 am

    Doug Tallamy talks about using tough plants like sedges, ferns, and prairie dropseed as a natural edging for a flower bed. I’m trying violets. At first those great clots of purple violets bugged me. Now I transplant them to places where they can defend my beds from invasion by lawn.

    Reply

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