Violet

These violets were given to me by a man I caught stealing seeds from my garden. He was a rather elegant gentleman, leaning over the fence and stretching a long arm to pluck spent poppy heads. When I suddenly said, "Good morning," his embarrassment was almost comical.

He explained that he was thinking of his sister who was suffering from depression. When he saw my poppies as he was driving past he thought that was a sight that might lift her spirits. They did look pretty good that year. I had a 3 square metre block of 75cm tall shirleys.

I picked seed heads that were out of his reach and we chatted about flowers. We discovered that we were both on the hunt for some white rose campion (Lychnis coronaria "Alba") and we were both familiar with the same clump on a back road in the outskirts of the city.

Several months later he called at my door with a box of little plants, which he said were reparation for his stealing. They turned out to be these charming violets.

By then I'd found a nursery selling white rose campion and was able to give him seeds that neither of us had stolen. I was too polite to ask about a provenance for the violets.