VIOLETS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 263, 5 November 1932, Page 6 (Supplement)

VIOLETS.

The violet is not ■very fastidious as to the soil, although it needs to be well dug, and if enriched manure the flowers will he all the finer. The wild violet is often found on moist, shady banks, in anything but in an ideal place for flowering plants. Many inexperienced growers thus conclude that any position and any soil are good enough for the violet when grown in the garden. It is true that the violet may be naturalised in odd corners, in shady places, on the 1 edge of paths, but while the plants will grow there they will produce ■ comparatively poor blossoms. To obtain good violets it is necessary to give them good cultivation, and for cutting for home use the stems should be of fair length. There are now some particularly fine varieties of violets, with large flowers on stems six to ISin, or more, long. Although the violet grows in the shade, ah open sunny position is best for it in the garden. The best time to make a plantation of violets is October. The violet increases itself from runners and the old plants and numbers of these rooted runners can be obtained. Put them out 12 to 15in apart

in a border previously prepared. The only attention needed during the summer months is to keep down all the weeds and the surface soil loose by constant hoeing, to cut off all the runners that appear and to water the plants frequently in hot, dry weather. Violets are subject to attacks of that pernicious little insect called red spider, and the best way to combat attacks is to spray with lime-sulphur once or twice during summer. This not only controls red. spider, but will also control leaf ru6t, a fungoid disease that attacks the leaves. Seo that the plants are well supplied with water and syringe them every evening in hot weather, using soot water for this purpose say once a week. By September they will have made fine plants, and will be then ready for transplanting into frames, there to produce a crop of flowers throughout the winter, if these are desired. If not, the violets will naturally be left to bloom where they are planted out of doors, which they will possibly do in mild weather during winter, and certainly during early spring.