Viola flowers

Viola hybrids are small annuals grown for their flowers, which are like small pansies. Like pansies, violas are available in a wide range of colours: purple, yellow, blue, mauve, pink, rusty red, orange, and white. These pale yellow violas are 'Penny Primrose'. You can see more violas in the 'Penny' series at Stokes.

Viola 'Sorbet Lemon Chiffon' is from the extensive 'Sorbet' series of violas. I couldn't find the name of this bright purple cultivar.

All violas in this post were photographed at Mimi's Convenience, 1686 Danforth.

Viola x wittrockiana: flowers

Viola x wittrockiana, known in English as "pansy" and in French as pensée des jardins, is a short-lived tender perennial grown as an annual in Toronto gardens. Pansies come in a huge variety of colours, though unfortunately no "true" red, only a dark rusty red like in this cultivar, 'Matrix Red and Yellow'. The five-petalled flowers often have a central blotch and/or are bicoloured.

This is not the best picture, but it does show what a pretty blue 'Matrix Ocean' is. I am regretting not starting some pansy seeds myself. 'Matrix Morpheus' has pretty blue and yellow flowers with whiskers rather than a blotch. There are many other colourways in the 'Matrix' series; you can see many more 'Matrix' varieties at Stokes.

This pansy is 'Delta Premium White Blotch'. I think this is the cultivar Nicky chose last year. (Since Nicky generally hates anything to do with plants and gardening, when he actually likes a plant I usually get it.)

Here's another so-called "red" pansy, 'Delta Premium Red Blotch'. I love truly red flowers like Monarda didyma and Aquilegia canadensis, so I'm always a bit annoyed when nurseries call merely reddish flowers "red". To me this is more of an oxblood colour.

This beauty, 'Delta Premium Neon Violet' is really tempting me. I love the neon glow around the blotch, which you can really see on the flower in the back.

I love the way that the purple blotch on 'Delta Premium Beaconsfield' softly blurs into the white, as though painted in watercolours. There are many other colourways in the 'Delta' series; I especially love this unusual pink and purple pansy from the 'Delta Pink Shades' mix.

All the flowers in this post were photographed at Mimi's Convenience, 1686 Danforth.

Matthiola incana 'Vintage' series

Matthiola incana, known in English as "garden stock", "ten-week stock", or "gillyflower", and in French as matthiole, giroflée quarantaine, giroflée des jardins, giroflée rouge, quarantaine or violier, is tender biennial (grown as an annual in Toronto) native to Eurasia. It bears spikes of deliciously fragrent flowers in a variety of colours.

A whole slew of bedding plants, including these 'Vintage' series stocks, have arrived at the corner store (Mimi's Convenience, 1686 Danforth), and are testing my resolve to grow everything from seed this year wherever possible.

I knew I should have ordered some seeds for stocks when I was placing my order with Stokes. (I did pick up some seeds for night-scented stocks, Matthiola longipetala, at Canadian Tire, but I haven't started them yet, and I don't know if they'll smell the same.)

The 'Vintage' series of stocks comes in a wide range of colours, including not only the 'Vintage Yellow', 'Vintage Peach', 'Vintage Lavender', and 'Vintage Copper' in this post, but also 'Vintage Red', 'Vintage Burgundy', and 'Vintage White', and has a height of about 25 cm. I think the "copper" is particularly interesting.