This picture of sweet violets was taken with my iPhone: it’s a blessing to be able to have it with me for moments like these. The heart shaped leaves are scrolled up, perhaps to funnel rain water down to the roots and the scented flowers are tiny but radiant. This is a quintessential cottage garden flower for me and I love to see posies made with them.
It’s clear this patch is thriving from all the little seedlings partly hidden under the leaves – you can just glimpse them towards the foreground. In England their natural habitat is dwindling, so I always give a double take when I hear gardeners describing these little jewels as weeds. Perhaps it’s a pride-in-your-lawn kind of thing.
I can’t imagine a lawn that would not look prettier with a scattering of violets, but it wouldn’t do for us all to think alike.
Susan Rushton 
They are so pretty 💜
If violets are weeds then they are most welcome ones! I love them, and can’t resist picking a few if they are abundant enough. Great shot, taken at just the right moment. A few days longer and the leaves might have grown taller than the flowers.
I always feel very lucky to see a patch of flowers that are ripe for having their picture taken.
They were one of the few things I tolerated in my lawn. Although even dandelions have their moments.
I’ve seen some stunning dandelions but confess I am not wildly keen on them.
Beautiful. Violets are such gorgeous little flowers.
They’re edible too!
Oh yes!
I so agree with you. Violets, a weed? Never!
Some of the most perfect flowers are the tiny ones.
In Maine, we have tiny flowers called bluets that will soon be in bloom on our lawn. I’m hoping my creaky knees will allow me to get down on the ground so that I can get a good shot.
The poet Ella Wilcox wrote “A weed is but an unloved flower.” But now that you’ve loved these violets and shared them with the world, _these_ violets can no longer be considered weeds.
That’s a lovely way of thinking about it – thank you!
so lovely. My mother had them growing in the cracks of her brickwork in the backyard when I was a child. They always make me happy to see them. NOT WEEDS.
Thanks for your vote! I love to see them in nooks and crannies too.
My lawn is full of white and purple violets (among many other flowers like veronica, gil-over-the-ground and dandelions) and I love it when the violets bloom thickly – I always feel like having a party to celebrate. 🙂
It sounds wonderful. I hadn’t heard of gil-over-the-ground but my sweetheart says I have seen it and his great-grandmother had a lawn made from it.
Of the mint family, it has tiny violet flowers, and like mint is near impossible to eliminate once it creeps into the garden. But I don’t mind it in the lawn.
This reminds us of France, where violets tumbled all over every spare piece of ground at this time of year. Here, they seem much rarer, and those I see are white. Which seems wrong somehow. Violets should be … violet.
I quite like seeing a mix of colours (including the freckled one) but I know what you mean. It’s like having crimson and white ‘pinks’.
I had a bank of violets one spring. My husband wanted to spray them along with moss and plant boring grass. What could be more lovely than moss and violets?
It’s much lower maintenance too!