MY FAVOURITE GARDEN FLOWERS

I suppose when it comes to "V" we could say the V stands for VERY beautiful because nearly all flowers are just that.

To my mind immediately came violets, violas, veronica and verbena.

VIOLAS to me are like miniature pansies with their happy little faces.  It is a genus of flowering plant and grown in gardens for their ornamental flowers.  In horticulture the term "Pansy" is normally used for the multi-coloured, large-flowered cultivars which are raised annually or biannually from seed and used extensively for bedding.  The term "viola" is normally reserved for the small-flowered annuals or perennials.

Violets (viola) are a genus of spring flowering plants in the family Violaceae.  There are around 400-500 species of violets and they are native northern hemisphere and are also distributed in Hawaii, Australasia and the Andes in South America.  (There is a very miniature viola or violet that came in a pot from my mother's place pre-1985 and each year it will be found growing in various pots in the garden.  As the hot weather comes on it dies off completely but year after year it appears again.  A lovely reminder of my mum).

Verbena is a genus in the family Verbenaceae which contains about 250 species of annual and perennial herbaceous or semi-woody flowering plants.  The majority of the species are native to the Americas and Europe.  They come in many delightful colours.

Veronica is a genus in the foxglove family and contains 250 species of annuals and perennials, which are most diverse in the northern temperate zones, with fewer species in tropical mountains and southern Australia.  They have a spreading or creeping habit and their leaves tend to be small, oval to lance-shaped.  A few species have solitary flowers but more often upright spikes bearing many flowers develop in spring and summer.

I have grown violas and violets but never verbena or veronica but I am sure many people have.  What a pity, with our water restrictions, very few bedding plants are now seen in the gardens in Perth suburbs.

Valerian and viburnum are two plants I've heard of but know very little about and then I went and forgot VINCA.  I believe they are also known as periwinkle and we do have a creeper growing in one of our garden beds which has blue flowers and which Phil always calls periwinkle.

The vinca I used to grow was a small bush with mainly light to dark pink flowers.  It would seed down each year and then disappear completely.  I tried growing some of the modern vincas but never had any success with them.  They didn't seem nearly as hardy as those of old.

I was amazed to find so many flowers beginning with the letter V.  Which is your favourite and do you know any I may have missed?