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.”
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.
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.
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.
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.
I agree completely, Lori — Donna
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.
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
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.