It's Spring! The Sweet Violets are Out!

In my opinion Spring arrives with the first sweet violet flowers! They have suddenly burst into flower and there are literally thousands where I live. The sweet violet flower is one of my favourite wild treasures of all. They are so tiny and beautiful, such an awesome shade of purple, and they smell heavenly.

I planted my own sweet violets last year, I saved the plants from the paving cracks around my estate before the council started their weed spraying program and re-homed them in tubs. These are the ancestors of the original sweet violets that were planted when this area was a stately home and gardens in the 1600', which I think makes them even more special.

They grew quite bushy last year but I wasn't sure if they would flower, in-fact they've just started flowering - yay! When I checked my tubs I had enough sweet violet flowers to start drying them -sweet violet is a medicinal plant, as well as being highly decorative.

 The picture shows some of the sweet violet flowers that I picked this morning, ready to be dried.