Perennial violas

Popular with the Victorians, perennial violas are long-lived plants with a generous spring to autumn flowering, says Anne Swithinbank, as she reveals her favourites

THE Victorians loved violas, and in an age when flowers held powerful meanings these pretty blooms were used to convey modesty and decency. Yet the language of flowers was subtle and receiving a bunch of purple violas stirred the emotions, as they carried loving thoughts. Some of the older cultivars are still around today and by growing them, you could be enjoying the same flowers as your great-great-grandparents.

Pansies, violas and violettas belong to the plant genus viola (which also contains violets) but there are important differences between them all.

Commonly referred to as pansies are cultivars of V. x wittrockiana with large, usually unscented flowers. These are either biennials (sown one year to flower the next before dying off) or short-lived perennials, and are used as container and bedding plants. By contrast, the tufted or Victorian violas are in a very different league and deserve a revival.

Beautiful colours

Bred from two evergreen perennial species, the mountain pansy (Viola lutea) and the horned or Pyrennean pansy (V. cornuta), these little beauties appeared around 1860. The resulting cultivars are compact hardy perennials lasting well from year to year. Generous in bloom, well-grown plants produce rounds of beautifully coloured and often fragrant flowers from April to September. Of variable growth habit, some are neat and upright with firm stems perfect for filling containers. Others are taller and more useful at the front of mixed or herbaceous borders where their stems can weave in and out of other plants.

Most fragrant violas

Further breeding work produced violettas that tend not to have whiskery markings and are mostly fragrant.