VIOLAS 
VIOLAS. One of the loveliest perennials. Easily grown, requiring little care, 
unregardful of frequent moving, blooming joyously and exuberantly from six to 
eight months of the year, these are among the loveliest flowers that can be grown 
in your gardens. 
Violas are perfectly adapted for ground covers around lilies or any other tall 
perennial that has little foliage near the ground. 
They are lovely in beds by themselves, in masses of one color; and in the 
hardy border, in front of the taller growing plants. They make a mass of one 
color that is a joy and a relief that one can have an ever-blooming flower that is 
so little trouble. 
They make the most beautiful edgings along paths and around beds. During 
the season, I can look out of my window and see the wide ribbon of violet purple 
that my Jersey Jewel makes around my beds of Japanese Iris. Not the least of 
my joy is that it will be there until the heavy frost of fall. I have only to water 
them occasionally, pick them now and then, and enjoy them. Put on a two inch 
mulch of peat moss in July to keep the roots cool and moist during the hot 
season and to protect them during the winter. The old growth should be cut back 
at the end of the first blooming season, usually in July, giving the new growth 
at the center a chance. It is the new growth which continues the bloom. They 
like a deep rich soil, bone meal, sheep guano, leaf mold, rotted cow manure, or 
any good fertilizer that is not too strong. They like sun but need a mulch to 
keep them from drying out too fast. Light shade is very satisfactory and some 
growers always recommend it. 
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