We harvest leaf and flower and eat them in spring salads.  I also dry the leaf for tea blends – it is a cool, mucilaginous expectorant for drier coughs.  It has rutin that may help with vein health and salicylic acid that may provide mild pain relief.  I’ve read recipes extracting them in honey, vinegar, alcohol, and oil for any application where you’d want their vitamin and mineral content along with the soothing properties.  Have fun getting to know violets!

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Kathy Beaumont, Lisa Derksen, Sydnia Ginger Anady, Megan Bumps

Hello,   Is there a way to insert photos of your violets? I can almost envision a ‘carpet’ of violets like a field of tulips.  I see everyone posting and I would love to see what people are talking about too. I am in zone 5 for growing things. Right between Chicago and Milwaukee.

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Sydnia Ginger Anady

My experience with wild violets is that they must not be the violets of yester-year.  One reads of a ‘lovely violet scent’ and of the flower being used in nosegays/bouquets; I have smelled a violet perfume and it smells wonderful. But the violets that grow in my yard and in the park seem to have no scent whatsoever.

Does anyone have experience with violets with a scent?

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Sydnia Ginger Anady

Wild violet leaf was my first herbal infusion. I used it for fibrocystic breasts and it worked amazingly! I don’t have a problem with cysts any more, but I still use my violet infused coconut oil all the time for itchy skin.

I love to relax in our hot tub and even though we use minimal chlorine, my back is always crazy itchy after I’ve been in it. My husband oils my back with the violet oil after I shower and it calms the itch immediately.  My son uses it for winter eczema and my niece likes it for keeping her face clear of acne.

I’ve also made a vinegar infusion with the blue flowers. I keep it in the fridge to apply to sun burns and wasp stings.

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Janet Ford, Elizabeth, Lisa Derksen, Sydnia Ginger Anady

Thank you for that post, Laura Taylor!  Are the violets you used the unscented ones that seem to be everywhere, or do you have access to a scented variety that has perhaps more medicinal value?

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Sydnia Ginger Anady

I would also be interested in knowing the kind of violet I have growing so profusely in my yard.  It’s growing in my gravel driveway, my mulch pathways and I’m expecting to find it in my raised garden beds.