25 years ago, a friendly neighbour shared with me some of her best-growing perennials. I was delighted to recieve a clump of sweet purple violets - what's not to love?
Well, that single clump has spread throughout the garden, shading out other less thuggy plants, and now they are invading the lawn. The secret to their success is their 2-pronged procreation. Underneath the ground, violets produce thick clumps of underground stems called rhizomes which store water and make the plant drought resistant. Even if all the leaves are pulled, the rhizomes grow new ones in no time. They also produce a lot of seeds that germinate quickly.
On top of everything, the waxy leaves have a shiny coating that make them resistant to most herbicides.
A clump of violets has regular-looking roots plus long horizontal corms that are very hard to pull out.
The internet says the best defence is a healthy well maintained lawn, as dense grass helps keep the roots of violets from spreading.
Obviously, that advice is not working for me. All I can do is attack and destroy them in the flower beds, but I will never get rid of them completely.
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