I first found a Viola “Heartthrob” for sale at a local nursery and it had rather large leaves for a viola. No flowers at the time but these have really neat heart shaped leaves. I went home and researched this cool viola and I found out it was a perennial viola not a bi-annual as most are. I went back and bought it. They only had a couple. The Viola was watered and fertilized for a couple of years in its nursery pot. I finally decided to put it in a pot and I chose a Chuck Iker brown crackled pot with curved sides. I planted the Viola right in the middle of the pot and added some smaller leaved Violas to go with it to fill out the pot. Everything was going well with my new accent plant right up until I closed the garage door right on top of them and the pot. The door broke the Heartthrob viola off just above the soil, it did not recover. Half of the other violas died to. I spent several years looking for another Heartthrob viola. I did find a couple mail order companies that had them and they were always sold out. I was to slow in acquiring one of them. One company said they would be available next Jan. again. Well I waited until Jan. came and then I pounced on three of them. Sure enough they were sold out again a little bit latter. I lost a couple of them for some reason not sure why. I did order three more and they are doing well. Perhaps I am learning to take better care of them and the damn squirrels did not get to them. The squirrels did dig in the other pots and then they died. So lets blame the squirrels for the other deaths except the one that was killed by some dumb nucklehead with a garage door.
Heartthrob Viola do bloom a small light violet flower on them in the spring. They form a very tall for a viola clump and do not seem to spread at least in a pot they do not. I kept all of my Heartthrobs on the south side of my house under 30% shade cloth and all but one sitting on top of the gravel bunker. The get just enough light and it is much cooler sitting on the ground then it is on top of the growing bench. The one on top of the bench did seem to be suffering a little towards the end of the summer. It will placed on top of the gravel bunker this spring along with the others. They seem to do better if planted in a pot with no other plants to compete with it. I have seen a few leaves that appeared to be chewed on but no culprit was spotted eating them. All in all a great plant to use as an accent plant.
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