In recent years I seem to be more accepting of semi-wild plants in the garden. I've always liked tough plants that can hold their own against bad soils, bad weather and salt wind. Now I am appreciating plants that will just fill up my garden with green and color without my care. I'm getting old and lazy. I remember my grand parents garden. They were both avid gardeners with lots of flowers around the porch entrance and an extensive orchard and vege garden. It all just got so overgrown in their old age and now I understand why. Its not that you get lazy but it becomes just too hard to trim trees and bend over to pull weeds.....so you just let it go. No judgement. One can still enjoy the occasional puttering in the garden and sit in a sunny spot to drink your morning coffee. Mmmmm....now that I think about it, that reminds me of my mother-in-law, another geriatric gardener, who always enjoyed her cup of coffee under her plumeria tree accompanied by her cats. From that shady spot she could observe life on her street.
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| Purple and white Chinese Violet in Samoa |
Anyways, I got a bit off topic there. Back to plants! Today I want to talk about the semi-wild plant locally called Chinese Violet. There is a lot of it that has been growing for decades behind our house on the sandstone bank next to an empty lot of land. I am not actually growing it in my garden but I get to enjoy views of it from my back windows. After rain storms there is a big flush of flowers that keep the bees happy and I enjoy picking the flowers to make posies for the table.
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| Chinese Violet as a wild ground cover above the boundary wall |
Despite the name, Chinese Violet is more a tropical plant from SE Asia, It has been documented as having been in Hawaii for 100 years now. Maybe the Chinese brought it here. This plant can be slightly problematic so it is good to to know what you are taking on before you grow in in your garden. Chinese Violet is a pretty, rambling perennial plant. It thrives in the sun and tolerates poor soils and drought. It seems to stand up to our salty trade winds as well. It is a fast growing plant that spreads out and will build up to 3 feet high if left to itself. Chinese Violet is known to be invasive because the seed capsules explode open to scatter the seed but only locally. It does not seem to be spread by wind or animals. I have observed it growing in the back empty lot for thirty years now and it has not spread far locally except for little seedlings that come up on the adjacent lawn. As a gardener this means pulling up the seedlings occasionally or mowing over them and it may seem a small thing to do for the abundant wild beauty of the plant.
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| Little baby seedlings coming up in the lawn. |
Because it is such a tough plant, Chinese Violet will survive without watering and fertilizer but looks at its best after a good watering from rain or hose. If it grows too high and shaggy it can easily be cut down with a pruner or a weed whacker. Some people like to grow this plant in hanging baskets and then it would need some extra food and water. There is a variegated form of Chinese Violet often grown in containers as shown on You Tube but I have not noticed it here in Hawaii.
The fun fact about Chinese Violet is that its flowers and leaves are edible. The leaves are high in vitamins and minerals and quite tasty in salads, stir fries and soups etc. You could quickly boil the leaves for a couple of minutes and then make a seasoned Korean side salad out of them. I like knowing I have survival foods that I could forage near my home if ever needed. ( Side note: New Zealand spinach is booming by the beach right now after the rains so I am currently foraging it for stir fries. See August, 2003 post. ) Animals enjoy eating Chinese Violet too so you can feed the plant trimmings to your goats and pigs. Our neighbors used to have a hen house. I always enjoyed showing my, then, little grand children how to poke stalks of Chinese Violet through the chicken wire for the hens to eat. Those hens would just demolish the stalks in seconds!
Aloha
