On 26 Apr, 13:38, "Christina Websell"
wrote:
when some chap knocked on my door yesterday to offer to clean up my block
paving to get rid of the violets. *Which I might say look spectacular atm,
they are growing in the crevices and look absolutely beautiful.
Some people have no soul.
Tina

I have to agree with you Tina. I absolutely adore wild violets and at
one point when I was first gardening in my olde Faerie Holler, there
were NONE. So after I started writing and visiting other gardeners all
over the country and then the world through the remarkable and magic
of a gardening newsgroup for me back in 1998, I was shameless and
asked for people to send me wild violets they didn't want. I lived at
my first Faerie Holler for 13 years, and thanks to much love from many
gardening neighbors, I got purple, sky blue, white with blue stripes,
white with purple throats and a small clump of for me, rare yellow
wild violets. I planted them all. And I was rewarded with them
settling in and spreading at their own rate. Except the yellow one. It
much more preferred the deeper dry woods that I had below, if I'd
known when I first tucked the two clumps in. Here in west faerie
holler in my new gardening home, I have spotted blue, white and blue
and purple wild violets, and have taken notice of some that are
struggling in a drainage ditch that could use some serious cleaning
up. I'll return with a bucket and my favourite wide trowel and lift
them up and tuck them in underneath the feet of my old willow oak
trees where the living is rough. Hopefully given a few years, they
will cover the almost barren ground and will soothe my starving eyes
for a flower in late winter and early early spring. Side note: I had
wondered what I had planted in a window box that also I knew housed
some tough as nails sedums. I came outside a few weeks ago to find my
eyes were dazzled with the healthiest and most lush blue/violet wild
violets I've seen in awhile. The leaves were enormous, as were the
flowers, and there were so many flowers, you couldn't see the leaves
that more looked like lettuce! I took pictures of course. Once I
determine that the black widow hasn't take residence, I will dig a
proper depth hole and just tip out the whole thing, and next spring
the rewards will be amazing. (I will remove the sedums of course as
they much prefer more intense sunlight).

And I love dandilions too, they draw the bees and they're wonderful
bitter greens after winter's days are shortened. My grandmammy always
had a salad of wilted dandilion greens in late winter. g Right now
I'm seeing floppy clumps of thin leaves like onions with white closed
flower buds that promise me it's Stars of Bethlehem (Ornithogalum), so
I will lift those as well and tuck them into spots to wow me as
well.

madgardener slowly making a new faerie holler with my fairies in West
Tennessee