The Violet Has Landed

[galadhir]

One thing I love about gardening is getting new plants, putting them in the garden and going out the next day to find that they have breathed a sigh of relief. They're looking healthier and glossier, more spread out and/or more upright. Most of the time, you didn't realize that they were in distress in their pot, but it's a delight to look at them in the ground and think oh, little buddy, you're so much happier here.

On Monday I was in town, doing my usual grocery shop, and the place where I get my refills had a shelf of plants you could buy. I have a garden where at least half of it is in full shade (it gets about an hour of sunlight a day tops,) and I want to get the soil covered by plants asap. Ideally, I want that ground cover to also be edible, or useful for medicine/scent/pollinator food etc. This is a difficult ask.

So when I saw they had an English violet (edible in salads and sweets, makes a healthy sweet tea, full of vitamin C, grows in full shade, vigorous spreader,) I thought that's the plant for me! But oh, the poor little thing was on its last legs, absolutely flat in its pot and turning yellow.

I took it to the counter and said "Could you please give it a dribble of water, just so it survives until I get it home?" So the guy held it under the tap for a moment and sold it to me for £1. (Which was a bargain because not only did I get the plant but also the nice terracotta pot it was in.)

It had already started to recover by the time I got it home, so this was not at its worst:



but after rehydrating it properly overnight, and planting it out yesterday, this is what it looks like today:



It is genuinely a joy to see a suffering creature suffering slightly less.

Comments

[ysilme]

How nice that it has survived, and that you found it to be saved! I'm also one of these nerds who bring sad deco plants in restaurants to the counter to have some water or point suffering ones out to garden center workers to give them water, and we have the odd rescue in our garden as well.

By the way, I don't remember if we've talked before, but my memory is notoriously bad. I know you from your Tolkien stories, and know I friended your potboy DW at some point, probably even before my nickname change - I used to be "Winterwitch". It might have even been on tumblr but I've been there only for a short time and not since at least two years, I think. We do seem to have at least one common interest in gardening! :o)

[galadhir]

It just doesn't seem right to just leave them to die of thirst when you could say something! And presumably the restaurants benefit too because otherwise they'd just have to buy more.

This particular shop is a great eco-shop where you can refill your own containers *and* they have an outdoor sitting area and make great toasties, so I rate them very highly. But they're not really aware that the plants they sell need to be looked after. This is the second 'on the verge of death' plant I've had from them.

I thought I remembered you from Tolkien fandom :) That's cool! My potboy DW is still active but still being flooded by reblogs of stuff from Tumblr, so it might be less clutter on your dash to defriend that one if you like. Making it convenient to defriend Potboy was part of the point of starting this one :)

[mistressofmuses]

Oh my gosh, it looks so much better already!

I very much miss having violets... a neighbor down the street from my childhood home had them growing around her yard, and I loved walking by.

[galadhir]

It does, doesn't it :) They really seem to like the deep shade, which is fortunate because that's what I've got. I always forget that they flower and am then pleasantly surprised in the spring, because most of the year they're just leaves - which I suppose is true of all plants, now I come to think of it!

[mistressofmuses]

I think they do enjoy shade!

They may not bloom for most of the year, but they have lovely foliage the rest of the time. I love plants like that, that are pretty all the time, with extra colorful bonuses during their blooming season!

[galadhir]

Yes, the permaculture advice for gardens is to get your soil covered asap and keep it covered, so really I'm happy to have anything that will spread and form a decorative mat. I'll worry about precisely what I want in my ground cover layer once I have one!