Heart’s Ease; A Violet by Any Other Name
Article and image by Monika Smith, Master Gardener
You might be familiar with ‘Johnny jump up’, as I am, or ‘wild pansy’. There are lots of names for it: heart’s delight, tickle-my-fancy, Jack-jump-up-and-kiss-me, come-and-cuddle-me, three-faces-in-a-hood, love-in-idleness, and pink-of-my-John. Very rom-com names! The Viola tricolor is not native to Alberta, but it is naturalized. I’ve not found it aggressive.
Viola tricolor, Violaceae family, originally from Eurasia, is considered the progenitor of the cultivated pansy. A plant whose big colourful faces I adore.
Johnny jump ups can grow just about anywhere in the northern hemisphere—near seas, inland, up to 2,700 meters, in open grasslands, wastelands, on banks, in neutral soils and partial shade. It’s short, just 15 cm in height and has a creeping habit and spreads through rhizomes. That is a tolerant plant. It’s a short-lived perennial and can produce up to 50 seeds, which are dispersed ‘explosively’; ants can carry the seeds off as food and help them spread.
The heart’s ease that I’ve had popping up in my yard for decades defy the lack of water, being yanked out, or cut down by a lawn mower. They just seem to appear and don’t require care.
I really like them and will find an official spot in my yard this year, as they are cheerful flowers that keep on blooming starting early in our season: May/June until September or longer. It is also pollinated by bees, and the Viola spp. are host plants for 30 species of fritillary butterflies. Those caterpillars are fully dependent on violets for their food. Plant some violas!
It’s not hard to find information about its medicinal properties, and they can be found as a culinary addition—the flowers look great in a salad.
As I’m going to just leave my Johnny jump ups to do their thing and hoping they’ll come back in the spring, I will think about including some native violas in my yard. Shade, a bit of moisture is good for the early blue violet (Viola adunca); others include the Canada violet (Viola canadensis) with white flowers and the marsh violet (Viola palustris) of ground cover height and a pale violet colour. Alberta is also home to the yellow prairie violet (Viola nuttallii), a yellow colour found in dry prairie and the valley violet or Viola vallicola, also yellow. Both are somewhat rare here and need a social media boost.
We all have plant bucket lists. So, drifting slightly away from a firm stand on native plants: I’d love to have a patch of sweet violet (Viola odorata). An intense deep blue flower that I found first by its scent near a pathway in Austria. I could not believe such a small flower could sweetly and intoxicatingly dominate the air. Used in perfume making for millennia, it tastes amazing in cookies and is a great cake topper in a candied form. Violas have been included and written about by poets and playwrights such as Shakespeare in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Think how to attract critters, such as butterflies by including host plants and water. What about growing edible, native mushrooms? If you have ideas for Naturally, Glendale, contact Monika at [email protected].
My pretty johnny jump up. I simply pulled a few scraggly plants from somewhere, put them in this planter, and it just grew into a very nice display.
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