Viola et Violet

I simply love violets. I love the look, the smell and even the taste particularly when they are sugared and presented on a dessert. Lovely friend L gave me a violet a few years ago, but I killed it. She gave me another one this year and so far so good. So good, in fact, it is flowering.

Violas are good too (known to some as johny jump ups) and since sewing a couple of seeds a few years ago the balcony garden has never been without violas, though they're not always in positions I choose! Usually transplant them to a little pot like this:

I even found this lovely yellow variety to add to the collection.

They are idiot proof flowers, what more could I need? Well I guess they aren't that idiot proof because I've killed the two pictured violas in the last few weeks. Neglect ... maybe ... poor positioning ... definitely. I left them in the only really hot winter sunny spot in the garden, in smaller pots than most of my garden, and they didn't like that, or the fact I failed to water them. Ooooopsss.

At least there are about 20 other violas springing up in the garden to replace these guys.