What is wild violet?

Wild violet, also called common blue violet, is a native perennial wildflower that’s at home in Pennsylvania woods and lawns alike. It feeds early bees and is a host plant for fritillary butterfly caterpillars. Wild violet identification is easy in spring, when the purple flowers bloom, but the plant is just as recognizable the rest of the season by its heart-shaped leaves.

Whether violets are a weed depends on you. Many homeowners are happy to let them be in shady spots. If you want a uniform lawn, though, be ready for a long campaign: violets are one of the hardest lawn weeds to get rid of.

Wild violet identification: what to look for

Violets grow in low clumps, usually 3 to 8 inches tall, with leaves and flowers rising from a crown at ground level.

• Leaves: Heart-shaped, with rounded teeth along the edge, on long stalks. They have a waxy surface and may look glossy. In early spring the leaf bases often curl inward.
• Flowers: Five petals, usually purple or blue-violet, sometimes white or white streaked with purple, on bare stalks in April and May. The two side petals have a tuft of white hairs at the base.
• Hidden flowers: In summer, violets also make small flowers near the ground that never open. They pollinate themselves and produce seed, which is part of why violets spread so well.
• Roots: Thick, knobby, branching rhizomes just under the soil surface.

Where it grows in Pennsylvania

Wild violet loves moist, fertile soil and shade. Under trees, on the north side of the house, along woods edges and in damp low spots are its favorite places. Those are also spots where lawn grass struggles, so violets slowly win the competition.

Once established, violets hold on even in sunnier areas. Across central PA’s wooded lots and older neighborhoods with mature trees, they’re one of the most common lawn complaints in spring.

Violets also creep in from the edges. A patch in a neighbor’s yard, a shady bed or the woods line will send rhizomes and seed into the lawn a little at a time. That’s why a yard that looked clean five years ago can be half violets today without anyone noticing the change.

Wild violet look-alikes

Creeping Charlie also has purple flowers and favors shade, but it creeps along the ground on square stems with small, round leaves and smells minty when crushed. Lesser celandine has glossy heart-shaped leaves too, but bright yellow flowers, and it disappears completely by early summer.

First-year garlic mustard rosettes have scalloped kidney-shaped leaves, but they smell of garlic when crushed.

Garden pansies and Johnny-jump-ups are violet relatives that sometimes seed into lawns. They have smaller, narrower leaves and multicolored faces, and they’re short-lived plants that hang on mostly by reseeding.

How to get rid of wild violet

Here’s the honest picture: violets are tough. The waxy leaves shed sprays, and the rhizomes store enough food to regrow. Plan on more than one season.

• Dig it out: For a few clumps, dig with a trowel or garden knife and get all of the knobby rhizome. Pulling the leaves alone does nothing. Fill the hole and reseed.
• Improve the turf: Fertilizing properly, mowing at 3 to 3.5 inches and choosing a shade-tolerant grass such as fine fescue for shady spots help the lawn compete. They slow violets down but rarely eliminate an established stand on their own.
• Fix wet ground: If violets are thickest in a damp, low area, improving drainage helps the grass more than the violets.
• Herbicide: Penn State lists products containing triclopyr as giving the best control of wild violet, alone or combined with other active ingredients such as sulfentrazone. Fall is the most effective time, when the plants are moving energy down to their roots. Repeat applications, sometimes over a couple of years, are normal. Preemergence products don’t work on violets.

Always read and follow the product label; the label is the law. Check that the product is labeled for home lawns and for your type of grass, and don’t let it drift onto garden plants. In Pennsylvania, anyone applying herbicide for hire must hold a PA Department of Agriculture pesticide applicator certification, so if you want the whole lawn treated, hire a licensed lawn-care company.

Keeping violets from coming back

Violets win in shade and damp soil where grass is thin. Overseed shady areas with shade-tolerant fescues in early fall, thin out tree canopies if they’re blocking all light, and keep mowing high.

In deep shade, it’s often smarter to stop fighting for grass. A mulched shade bed or a native groundcover planting under a big tree looks better than thin turf full of violets, and you can let the violets bloom along the edges for the bees.

Questions we get about wild violet

Similar weeds

Creeping Charlie (Ground Ivy)Glechoma hederaceaYellow Wood SorrelOxalis strictaWhite CloverTrifolium repens