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This is the largest practical difference between violas and pansies. A pansy that sets a few pods scatters a modest amount of seed and you may get a handful of volunteers. A viola left unsheared for a month sets pods at nearly every joint, ripens them, and fires the seed several feet when the capsules split, which they do explosively on a warm dry day. One unattended plant produces dozens of seedlings the following season, in paving cracks, at bed edges, in the gravel and in the pots of other plants.
Handled deliberately this is free plants. Leave one plant in a corner of the bed unpicked from mid season onward and shear everything else, and you get a crop of volunteers in a place you chose. Lift the seedlings when they have four or five true leaves, which is when the root is still a single easy taproot, and move them where you want them. They transplant well at that stage and badly once they have started to spread.
Handled carelessly it is a nuisance. Violas that seed into a mixed border come up under everything, and because the same ground carries generation after generation, black root rot builds up in it. If a patch has been self sowing violas for several years and the plants are getting steadily poorer, that is the reason. Pull the volunteers out of it, grow the next batch from bought or saved seed in fresh soil elsewhere, and let that patch grow something else for a couple of years.
Seedlings will not come back the same as the parent
Expect this and it stops being a disappointment. Violas cross freely with each other and with pansies growing nearby, and most garden plants are the product of controlled crosses, so their seed does not breed true. A container of clear yellows and deep purples typically produces volunteers in muddled mid tones, often smaller flowered and often with heavier whisker markings than either parent, and after two or three generations of uncontrolled seeding a population drifts steadily toward small flowers in dull violet.
That drift is not a failure. The resulting plants are usually tougher, more compact and longer flowering than what you started with, because the seedlings that survive without help are the ones suited to your ground. Many people prefer them. But if you want a specific color to reappear, seed is the wrong route.
To keep one plant exactly, you have to take a piece of it: a cutting or a division. Both are easy on a viola and both give you an identical plant. Do this with any plant that has genuinely performed, meaning one that flowered longest, held its shape without shearing, or came through a bad winter when its neighbors did not. That is worth more than color.
| Method | Best timing | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Self sown seedlings | Lift at four or five true leaves | Free plants, mixed and unpredictable colors |
| Saved seed | Collect as pods pale and turn upward | Many plants, will not match the parent |
| Softwood cuttings | After a shear, in mild weather | Exact copies, rooted in two to three weeks |
| Division | Cool weather, on an established clump | Two to four exact copies, flowering at once |
| Layering a sprawling stem | Any time the stems are long | One or two rooted plants with no effort |
Cuttings are the reliable way to keep a plant you like
Viola cuttings root readily and the best material comes from a plant you have just sheared. The shoots that break after a cut back are short, non flowering and soft, which is exactly what you want. Flowering stems root poorly because the plant keeps trying to open the bud instead of making roots, so if you must use one, pinch the bud out first.
Take shoots two to three inches (5 to 8 cm) long, cut cleanly just below a leaf joint, and strip the lower leaves so that two or three remain at the top. Push them into damp gritty potting mix around the edge of a small pot, four or five to a pot, so that the lowest remaining leaves sit just clear of the surface. Rooting hormone is not needed. Cover with a clear bag or a propagator lid, keep out of direct sun in a cool bright place, and expect roots in two to three weeks.
You will know they have taken when the tips start growing again and the cuttings resist a very gentle tug. Pot them up singly then, grow them cool and bright, pinch each one once to make it branch, and plant out when the root ball holds together. A cutting taken in mild weather is a full sized flowering plant within about ten weeks, which is faster than the same plant from seed and it is identical to the parent.
- Shear the parent plant first Cut the plant over lightly and wait seven to ten days. The soft non flowering shoots that break after a shear root far more reliably than anything already carrying buds.
- Cut two to three inch (5 to 8 cm) shoots Take each cutting cleanly just below a leaf joint with a sharp blade. Pinch off any flower bud, since a cutting trying to flower will not root.
- Strip the lower leaves Leave two or three leaves at the top and remove the rest. Leaves buried in compost rot and take the cutting with them.
- Insert into damp gritty potting mix Use a mix of about half all-purpose potting mix and half sharp sand or perlite. Space four or five cuttings around the edge of a small pot, where drainage is best.
- Cover and keep cool and bright A clear bag held off the leaves, or a propagator lid, holds humidity. Out of direct sun, at 60F to 68F (15C to 20C). Vent daily and remove anything that turns brown.
- Pot up once the tips grow New growth at the tip and slight resistance to a gentle tug mean roots. Pot singly, grow cool and bright, pinch once to branch, and plant out when the root ball holds.
Division and layering, for established clumps
Any viola that has been in place for a season or two can be divided, and this is the fastest way to turn one good plant into three. Do it in cool weather, never in heat and never into a freeze. Water the plant thoroughly the day before, lift the whole clump with a fork, and shake or wash the soil off so you can see what you are dealing with. The crown will separate into several rooted pieces, either by pulling gently apart with your hands or by cutting through with a knife.
Every piece must have both roots and at least one growing point with leaves on it; a section of root with no shoot will not regrow, and a shoot with no root will not either. Discard the tired woody center, which is the part that has stopped producing new growth, and replant only the vigorous outer sections. Shear each division back by half before replanting, so the reduced root system is not trying to support a full head of foliage, and water in well. Divisions usually flower within three to four weeks.
Layering needs even less. Where a viola has sprawled and long stems are lying on the soil, pin one down with a stone or a bent wire at a point where a leaf joint touches the ground, and heap a little soil over that joint. It roots there within a few weeks with no attention at all. Cut it free from the parent once you can feel resistance when you lift it, then dig it up and move it. This is the method for someone who wants two or three more plants and no equipment.
Label every cutting and division with the date taken and which plant it came from. Violas from your own garden look much alike as young plants, and the whole reason for taking a cutting was that one particular plant behaved better than the rest. Note what it did, not just where it stood.