I have absolutely NO experience with Violas, Leslie, (other than a 6-pack of pansies I bought in winter, which I potted up and gave to Mom), but I hope you find your answer from someone who knows.

I wish I had some reseeding ANYthing! LOL

Brenda

These are pretty cute baby plants, I'll have to get a pic. I was pulling them and thought they were weeds and a few got out of hand because I was busy and bloomed and I realized what they were! Now I double check the leaves first before pulling, wonder how many I pulled already:) Then again, they all could be weeds.

They do kind of look like pansies, but they have little tiny blooms and I didn't buy pansies early spring to plant but violas. But, I could be wrong. They sure are cute and just some of my favorite colors:)
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These are spreading in the old mini garden and all over the large garden areas too.
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Wow, those are VERY cute, Leslie! I didn't realize that they spread so fast, either! What the....? Mom had a little batch of hitchhikers in a pot of Salvia this year, but yours are spreading all over your yard. You must have GREAT soil! (As you should, after all of your hard work. :D)

Brenda

It is heavily amended in that mini garden. But these are everywhere in the large garden too which is clay and lightly has a thin layer of mulch on it. A lot of places where they're showing up I haven't even gotten to and it's pure clay. I'll get some more pics in the large garden where both the alyssum and these have taken hold by themselves away from the dragon. I wonder if they'll come back though next spring:) I belive the alyssum will from a friend who lives in a place where it dies back every winter, but the violas? I also still have a couple a cyclamen growing at the back of that mini bed. Everywhere else they're long gone. That bed is full of raggedy plants but a few a coming in on their own:) I transplanted a gerbera into their and I have a yellow flower. The leatherleaf ferns I'm at a loss what to do, I can't figure out if they need more water or less. Same as that purple hosta? There's a second one of them on the other side of this bed that is tripple that size. I don't know what I do differently from one to the other.

You can't grow volunteers? Brenda, you have a whole garden full of wonderful plants, you probably can't count how many you have and there have to be volunteers in there you don't know are there!!

You didn't ask me what those spike things were...Cat scats. When I had the roses in here it was to try to keep the cats out from using this as a litter box. Worked too:) Then I had the soil a lot looser with mulch before I dug all the roses up and tilled more clay around with the top soil I had, by the way this is chock full of worms in here. I did a good job making a bed that worms would come to out of clay and amending the soil.

These would be pretty cute all around the roses but I had in mind something a little more sophisticated, LOL*

Once I notice them I give them a shower of water as I pass by daily watering the bedding verbena. Some days I forget or if the sprinklers water I don't. Some days I'm gone and don't water at all. Some of these are traveling to where I don't water and must be coming up because of the sprinklers watering from the back behind the roses.
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It's amazing how they're coming up ALL over the place, Leslie, even in the unamended stuff! You know, I haven't had one thing reseed in my garden, but it might be because I'm fairly crazy about dead-heading. :D Also, I don't have a lot of bare earth around plants. Weeds, yes, but no bare earth. LOL

Oh, are the Cat Scats the mushroom looking things? I didn't even notice, I was so busy looking at the flowers! Call me crazy, but I think they look pretty. :) How do they work?

Brenda

The cat scat is the brown spike thing behind the green mushroom looking thing, LOL* That's a water bell that'll ring when it rains. Anything green that I didn't plant I was pulling for a weed and I got busy and this bloomed and I thought, oh man, you know how many I've already thrown away!! Bare dirt I have a lot of still, I'm trying to cover it with mulch though. I've got one more load to do yet. I deadhead, I just have some violas that are stubbornly still trying to live in the heat. However I am bad about the dead blooms, I tend to toss them in the direction of the grass knowing they'll be picked up in the next mowing:) Rose petals I like scattering in the garden, I think they're pretty. And it's got to give something back, infintestimal, but it'll have an overall cumulative effect.

Be pretty cool if these violas as well as the alyssum will come back next year. If not, they're adding some nice color now. I had one annual in the mtns make a surprise appearance one spring on it's own. Could have been a pansy, I usually planted those.

Scats work because buried the cats won't step on the spikes:) They were using the bed as a litter box because of the loose soil. The large garden was hard clay and they were used to loose soil from the forest. They had two litter boxes, one in the house and one in the garage with a kitty door. They preferred my mini bed and kept digging up the mini roses. When first planted they were only a couple inches big. They either kept uncovering or covered them over when doing their "thing". I went out there 3 times a day to correct the damage and still every morning would find a rose uprooted. These really work. Keeps the dog out of there now, He eyes the nice cool shade in there and wants his spot back now that the roses are gone:)

Oh, I LOVE that water bell! I bet it sounds so nice! I have one set of wind chimes that really gets to ringing when the wind blows from the north, but I've seen some different water bells or chimes that I've been tempted to get, too. :)

Where did you get the cat scat spikes? My cat never used to go in the garden, until the strays started coming here to drink out of the pond. Now, Pookie not only does some of her business in the yard, but she also drinks out of the pond. LOL

I'm pretty upset right now, because yesterday, a neighbor's bully cat got in the yard while Pook was partaking of her usual time out there, enjoying the shade and the sounds of nature. Anyway, the cat attacked my Pookie! I think she's ok, thank god. I'm going to start a separate thread on this, since I feel a rant coming on. :D

I always drop the dead heads in the yard, too, Leslie. LOL Mine isn't a garden seen in a magazine, that's for sure. :D

Brenda

You could put the spikes where the cat is jumping down into the garden at also. Works for me:)
Lee Valley Tools. They're a great place to buy from and they ship promptly. Excellent other products too. 100% trustworthy. Comes in a package of four and these may also be cut into smaller ones if you'd like to. They're
8-1/2"x6-1/2" big. Bury them in the dirt and they have reverse spikes so they stay buried:)

Here is a link that might be useful: Lee Valley Tools

I love it that violas (Johnny-Jump-Ups) come up everywhere. I just hope it doesn't get too hot this summer for them.

Rain Bell, huh..... haven't heard of that before.

Leslie, those are very reasonably priced! Thanks SO much for the link! If the previous owners don't pick up this cat soon and take it to the shelter, I'm going to order them...pronto!

Doh! Of course, Johnny-Jump-Ups!! The name says it all. :D Sounds like you got a bargain, Leslie. A gazillion plants for the price of...a lot fewer. LOL

Brenda

Every day there are more of them all over the front area of the garden:) Thanks for the name Westelle, they aren't seeming to mind the heat yet.

Yeah, think you'll have to trap Brenda, sometimes the vet has one they'll loan out.