There are over 50 species of violas in Eastern North America with flowers that range from pure white to bicolored forms of blue and white to pure blue-lavender, and yellow. According to the "Atlas of the Virginia Flora", Loudoun County can boast of 15 native perennial species. A walk in woods would reveal many as most are evergreen, evident as clusters of pointed green leaves. The most distinctive of our native violas carries finely divided foliage, commonly known as the bird's foot violet, eluding to the resemblance. The flowers arrive in spring and much coveted forms have petals that vary with dark petals above and pale lavenderblue petals below. This species is often found on south banks along wooded properties. It has been said that John Bartrams discovery of this violet altered his life forever as he became a devoted horticulturist from that day forward.

The garden varieties of viola have been introduced from Europe, commonly referred to as Johnny-Jump-Ups. New hybrids are always arriving at your local nursery and the efforts of hybridization are for more cold and heat tolerance. The single best planting time is in the fall. These winter annuals will flower all winter and persist with flowers into mid-June, when they finally succumb to the summers heat. I find the violas far more effective as a color sweep in winter, when compared to pansies. When temperatures dip down into the twenties and lower, you will find open flowers freezing to the point of marring the petals. The violas are much quicker to produce new flowers and recover from these spells. When planted in areas where mulch is not used, they will often reseed, their seed needs light to germinate. Rarely will you find pansies reseeding.

The fritillary butterfly is a frequent feeder of viola leaves with the greater spangled fritillary, and the lesser fritillary all commonly found feeding on the leaves, primarily in fall. If you find that they are eating your Johnny-Jump-Ups more than you can tolerate, don't kill them, simply move them to some of the perennial violet species that we often consider weeds. The serve as a larval source as well. On the other hand, the flowers of violas have become a popular item for adding to salads, as a nutritional snack they contain, by weight, three times as much vitamin C as oranges. Not to mention that they are just beautiful in winter salads. Add them to cakes as candied violets, the small flowers are dipped in egg whites and then sprinkled with fine sugar. Very easy to do and guaranteed to impress.

The ever popular pansies are a hybrid form of Johnny-Jump-ups, the name derived from the French word pensee, meaning "thought" or "remembrance". A small bouquet of pansy flowers, given to someone you love is believed to be able to turn that persons thoughts toward you. The flowers can be blotched or not, in that case they are considered faceless. The Swiss Giants of old were sold some 30 years ago and not nearly as tolerant as the hybrids of today for fluctuations in cold and hot temperatures. Flower colors were also very limited, nothing like the marvelous peaches, pinks and pale yellows of today. Much fun can be had matching both pansy and viola colors with spring flowering bulbs. Simple combinations make for stunning examples, consider blue pansies with blue muscari bulbs (grape hyacinths) or white anemones with white violas.

The first meeting of the Piedmont-Blue Ridge Horticultural Society was a big success. There are meetings every month at Blandy or the State Arboretum. The next scheduled event is October 3rd from 2-4. The speaker is Janet Draper, gardener of the Mary Livingston Ripley Garden at the Smithsonian. She will most certainly introduce participants to some new plants. Janet strives to plant and grow anything new or unusual.