A Diary Entry from English Gardener Henry Arthur Bright in Praise of Violets

March 25, 1874  

Today, the English merchant and author Henry Arthur Bright recorded an update about his spring garden in his popular diary-turned-book, A Year in a Lancashire Garden.

Again, we have had frost and snow, and this time, it has done us harm.

 

The early bloom of the Apricot has turned black, and our chance of a crop rests with the later buds.

 

Meanwhile, the white Scilla, the double Daffodil, the Arabis, and others are doing well enough.

A bed of Daisies and another of Polyanthus are far from satisfactory.

Hepaticas I have tried over and over again, and they always fail.

 

By the way, I found it very difficult to get these Primroses and had to pay what seemed an excessive price for them.

 

...We have Violets in abundance, and they scent all the air as we pass through the garden door.

Even in winter, a faint fragrance lingers among their leaves- a shadowy memory of a perfume haunts them even when no single flower can be found.

 

Bacon says that,

"the flower which above all others yields the sweetest smell in the air is the Violet; especially the double white Violet, which comes twice-a-year: about the middle of April and about Bartholomew-tide (August 24)."