Old-fashioned flowers and shrubs such as dahlias, geums, kniphofias and hydrangeas, which were much loved by our Victorian forebears, have been given a new twist in planting schemes in recent years. Now it’s the turn of the viola: with the debut of two specialist nurseries in the Grand Pavilion at Chelsea this year, these stalwarts of the 19th-century garden will have officially returned to give colour all summer long, refreshed by a steady stream of lovely new varieties.
These are not the humble Viola odorata, which flowers all too briefly in our lanes in early spring. Nor are they the annual or biennial pansies and violas — originally bred from V tricolor and raised from seed — that are crammed into pots in various