Grow where you are planted

"The violet is a nun." Thomas Hood

Grow where you are planted. No plant does this better than the violet, bringing beauty and good cheer wherever she blooms.

The viola has always been one of my favorites -- in the wild we call them violets. In the garden we call them violas or pansies. Whatever we call them, they are stalwarts in the garden.

The viola has a very interest history and meaning. Followers of Napoleon who promised to return from Elba with violets used the violet blossom as their insignia in promise of their return.

The viola has been called heart's ease, having been given this name in honor of St. Euphrasia, a nun who was sainted. Her name in Greek signifies thoughtfulness of mind, and she was known for her modesty, humility and charity. Hence the violet has become known as the "humble" violet.

Pliny the Elder (Roman soldier, naturalist and author) wrote that violets worn as a crown mitigate the scent of wine, as well as prevents headaches and dizziness. Briton's used the violet flower as a cosmetic. Violas have been used as dyes, as medicine and for perfume.

The viola family includes violets, violas, pansies and johnny-jump-ups. They grow wild as weed in our lawns, and cultivated in rock formations, in flowerbeds, borders, pots and containers. They come in a rainbow of colors -- white, yellow lavender, blue pink, bi colors, tri colors and speckled. They are small (as small as a half inch) and large (as large as a 4 inch face).

The viola family thrives in cool, moist, partly shady weather. But they will bloom in hot weather. They spread by self-sewing, runners, or can be purchased. And they are prolific bloomers in both the spring and fall.

The viola family is perhaps the most adaptable and hardy plant in the garden. The metaphor for the violet is the humility with which it has been associated for many hundreds of years. It blooms where it is planted, bringing color and beauty to any surrounding. It bears the cold and the rocky soil. It brings a rainbow of colors, sizes and faces to the garden. It blooms in the wild, uncultivated, nurtured and protected.

The metaphor of the violet is to bloom where you are planted. To be humble and modest, and to bring beauty and light in spite of whatever circumstance we may find ourselves.

I am no longer my own, but yours. Put me to what you will, rank me with whom you will; Put me to doing; put me to suffering; Let me be employed for you or laid aside for you, exalted for you or brought low for you.
Let me be full, let me be empty; let me have all things; let me have nothing; I freely and wholeheartedly yield all things to your pleasure and disposal.

From John Wesley's Covenant Prayer