Still Here: No shrinking violet

Roses are not always red, and most violets are not blue. If you scan the ground this time of year, you’ll see that many of them are purple, some are white, while some look nearly blue but aren’t quite there. Some come with stripes, and others are yellow. In fact, in North America alone, there are around 200 types of native violets.

Their heart-shaped leaves are among the first to cautiously emerge after the last frost. So perhaps it’s best to consult them about the end of winter instead of a groundhog that’s afraid of its shadow. Sometimes they seem at risk of being crowded out by mugwort, a tenacious invasive plant that always seems to be the first to arrive, the last to leave and the hardest to get rid of. But in shady areas where violets thrive, they quickly bulk up. Their leaves get larger, and out of nowhere the ground is no longer just full of little green leaves, but also mottled with purple.

The flowers bloom at a time when other flowers are scarce, making them an important source of nourishment for pollinators that are also emerging in early spring. Fritillary butterflies also rely on their leaves to host their larvae.

Humans can also include violets in their diet. Their leaves and flowers are edible.

One insect that also relies on wild violets as a source of food is the ant, which also helps cultivate them. Pollinated violets produce tiny green fruits that eventually burst open when the seed is ripe. The seeds of violets come with a nutrient-dense coating that attracts ants, which seek out the seeds and take them to their nests. They consume the coating and leave the rest of the seed in their underground dwellings, essentially planting them.

Besides having insect friends to help rear their young, violets also reproduce vegetatively through underground rhizomes, which are plants’ way of creating clones from long-reaching roots that spread parallel to the surface. New plants sprout directly out of the rhizomes.

It is said that violets’ preferred habitat is rich, moist soil, but Brooklyn’s violets do not seem to be picky, often growing in tree beds that are watered by dog pee and collaterally salted in the winter. There is a small but tenacious population growing through the cracks of the pavement behind my apartment building. I’ve been told that violets grow where there were old-growth forests, so the little purple heads and heart-shaped leaves remind me once again that they didn’t move into our space, but we moved into theirs. Every violet you see is a vestige of a place dominated by trees. When I see them growing through the cracks, I imagine hordes of them clawing their way out and carpeting the sidewalks as they would the forest floor.

There are places in Sunset Park where you can see this effect, like under the towering trees of Green-Wood Cemetery. There is a really good strong community of violets growing by the swing sets near the Sunset Park playground, where they are in constant battle with mugwort. As their leaves grow, they make their presence known and eventually shade out the emerging mugwort enough to keep it in check.

Despite violets’ beauty and value, people spend inordinate sums of money and time trying to exterminate them. The internet is full of information on how to kill violets using harsh herbicides, but it’s infinitely smarter to use their beauty and aggressiveness as a ground cover, and a free and environmentally friendly one at that. Not only would violets be a ground cover, they would be a free food crop that you can enjoy in salads.

Some gardeners, like my late neighbor Jody, figured out the benefits of violets. She often rehomed them from tree beds where they marinated in dog pee and salt and put them in her garden beds. Inspired by her, I tried to extract some from between the pavement cracks behind my building to plant in my container garden, where I thought they’d be more comfortable, but they refused to be uprooted. Maybe there is still some of that primeval forest soil beneath the cement that they are holding on to.