Wild about Violas

August/September 2002
By JIGS AND JOANN GARDNER 
08-02-038-pansy.jpg
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PHOTOGRAPHY BY DAWNA EDWARDS
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We like to candy viola petals for cake decorations and press especially pretty faces for floral notes on stiff cards; in the language of flowers, pansy, from the French pensée, means “a thought” (usually a sad one).

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Candied petals

Lay fresh, unblemished petals on doubled sheets of waxed paper. Brush the front surface with egg white beaten with a little water, then sprinkle the surface with sugar; repeat on the back surface. Place the petals on clean waxed paper and turn daily until they are dry to the touch. We like to use them as soon as possible, but they can be stored in paper-lined boxes for a few weeks.

Pressed floral cards

Faces with some dark petals show up best when dried. Spread them flat on a thick layer of newspaper; cover them with another layer, then with heavy weights, and leave until completely dry. Carefully pick off the flowers and store them in a marked envelope until ready to use. Lightly dab the card with glue where you want the pansy to be, then gently press it in; add other flowers such as roses for love, lady’s mantle for comfort, mint for wisdom, horehound for health, and rosemary for remembrance; with a fine pen identify each pressed flower or leaf and its meaning, weaving your writing to fit around the plants; seal the card by covering it firmly with plastic wrap.

Jigs and Jo Ann Gardner have compiled thirty year’s worth of lessons from their remote farm on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, in Gardens of Use and Delight (Fulcrum 2002) from which this text has been adapted with permission.

VIOLA SPP.
GROWS 6 TO 8 IN.

Wild pansies (Viola tricolor) and garden pansies (V. ¥wittrockiana), short-lived perennials, thrive in the conditions on our farm. The wild sort, better known as Johnny-jump-up, lives up to its name, self-seeding in cool, moist pockets along the garden path and at the back of the apple tree among primulas, Jacob’s ladder, and columbine. We started with a golden-eyed all-purple type that eventually produced desirable variants, among them a cream and violet “face” delicately lined with black whiskers, which obligingly grows through the shaded base of clustered bellflower (Campanula glomerata) nearly all summer, even through heat. Such types are noted and propagate by stem cuttings (seeds are variable). Wild pansy’s older name, heartsease, preserves its use as a heart stimulant. We also maintain colonies of its showier cousin, the garden pansy, in shades of yellow, cream, raspberry, burgundy, and blue at the base of the apple tree where they can be seen as we pass by every day. Cut back both pansies just before they are entirely spent so they rebloom in late summer and fall.

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