Viola

2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38

Viola (lat. Viola) - a light-loving and shade-tolerant flowering plant from the Violet family. Its second very common name is violet.

Description

Viola is an excellent cross-pollinated plant, forming rather compact bushes with branching, erect or straight stems, the height of which usually ranges from twenty to thirty centimeters. The root system of the viola is always fibrous, and its serrated alternate dark green leaves can have both oval and ovoid or oblong-lanceolate shape.

The diameter of quite large viola flowers can vary from four to ten centimeters, and all of these flowers are characterized by completely different colors and shapes. Viola flowers can be blue, and red, and purple, and orange, and cream, and yellow, and white, and even two or three colors with spectacular bright eyes in the middle. As for the flowering period, depending on the timing of sowing, it starts somewhere in May-June and lasts until autumn.

In total, the genus viola has about four hundred species.

Where grows

Viola grows in the tropics, subtropics, and temperate regions located in America, New Zealand, Australia, Europe, Africa or Asia, that is, this plant will not be difficult to meet almost everywhere! And the homeland of fragrant viola is considered to be the forest zones of Western Europe, the Balkan and Crimean peninsulas, the western regions of Russia, Asia Minor and Asia Minor, as well as the northern regions of Africa.

Usage

Viola is actively used in ornamental gardening. These flowers look especially great in mixed flower beds in the foreground. They will look no worse in mixborders, curbs, as well as on rocky slides. In addition, viola is ideal for container gardening, as well as for decorating near-trunk circles of a wide variety of trees. And some varieties of viola are quite successfully used for forcing. As for the partner plants, Rogersia, geranium and Volzhanka will look gorgeous against the background of a luxurious viola carpet.

The ancient Romans and Greeks decorated tables and walls with wreaths and garlands of viola more than two thousand years ago in honor of various holidays, and fragrant viola was grown in Europe mainly at monasteries. And it was this kind of viola that was the very first introduced into culture! It was followed by the mountain viola, and at the end of the eighteenth century, P. S. Poite introduced the society to the Altai viola - it was then that the Russian botanist first brought it to St. Petersburg. As for the famous and beloved by almost everyone Viola Wittrock, or pansies, Europeans met her only at the beginning of the twentieth century.

Growing and caring

Despite the huge variety of species, the requirements for a viola planting site are almost the same: this plant will feel best in moderately humid and either open or slightly shaded areas. The soils should be sufficiently loose and certainly rich, and watering should be moderate, since an excess of moisture can easily lead to the final and irrevocable death of beautiful flowers.

Periodically, the viola should be fed with high-quality mineral fertilizers, but it is highly undesirable to use fresh organic matter for these purposes.

Perennial varieties of viola are usually propagated either by seeds sown before winter, or by dividing the bushes every three to four years, which, as a rule, is produced in August. Seedlings usually bloom in the second year.