Why I Collect Sweet Violets Every Spring
On herbal beauty, old remedies, and the hidden little flower that covertly spreads it’s Magic
„That queen of secrecy, Violet“
Keats
My own illustration of a spring violet oxymel – sweet violets, honey, vinegar, and one of my favorite old-fashioned seasonal preparations
Every spring in early March, there comes a moment when I begin looking down.
Not at my phone, not at the pavement in irritation, but at the grass itself, under the yet naked bushes, at the edges of paths, beneath hedges, beside walls, in those half-wild corners of the city where the spring season first begins to whisper before it’s even visible. That is where the sweet violet appears, low to the earth and almost secretive, as though it has no interest in competing with louder flowers and no desire to explain itself to those what don’t care.
The Violet appeared to me in March 2020, the first year of the lockdown, when my city, Berlin, suddenly was empty of tourists and the air was cleaner. I was walking along an empty path in a big park, and suddenly I saw a sea of deep purple, a field of little violets spreading like a flower carpet. I took some home and started making purple Violet vinegar. Ever since I’m obsessed. In that year I gifted everyone I knew with a bottle of sweet fragrant Violet vinegar that was almost like a perfume. Later when I left Berlin to live in Italy 2023, I kept this tradition and even developed a cocktail on the basis of violett vinegar, adding honey and gin. It was delicious and everyone was in awe.
That is one of the many reasons I love it.
The violet is not a show-off, it’s a true wallflower. It does not arrive like a rose or a tulip, demanding admiration from across the field. It hides in plain sight, and if you want it, you must slow down, kneel down, and pay attention. In that sense alone, it is already a corrective to modern life, as it lives on understatement and modesty.
This tiny flower has a pretty little “face”, but the violet is more than just pretty. It is one of those old school spring plants that carries both practical herbal value and a certain poetic intelligence, which is a combination I always trusted.
Traditionally, sweet violet (Viola odorata) has been used as a gentle spring herb for soothing the body rather than forcing it. It has a long reputation for helping with dry coughs, irritated throats, overheated states, and mild chest discomfort, and it has also been valued as a soft lymphatic and skin-supportive plant. This is not the kind of herb that storms into the system like a botanical drill sergeant. Violet belongs to the older school of healing – subtle, cooling, easing, softening.
And that character is exactly what makes it such a beautiful flower to collect in spring.
Spring is not only the season of energy and green force. It is also the season of transition, of nerves readjusting after winter, of bodies that are still a little sluggish, tender, or overstimulated. Violet feels perfectly suited to that threshold. It is one of the first flowers that reminds me that spring does not begin with noise. It begins with a long awaited return.
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That is why I gather Violets.
Over the years, I have used violets in several ways, and one of my favorites has become the violet oxymel – an old-fashioned preparation made with vinegar and honey, infused with the flowers. It belongs to that wonderful domestic herbal tradition where the kitchen and the apothecary are still in conversation with each other. A violet oxymel can be taken by the spoonful, stirred into water, or used as a bright, floral spring tonic. It is useful, beautiful, and faintly alchemical, which is more or less my favorite category of things.
I also make the mentioned above violet vinegar, which is one of the loveliest preparations of all. If you use a clear vinegar, especially white wine vinegar, the flowers can release an astonishing purple hue, along with a delicate fragrance that feels almost too elegant for something so simple. I have used violet vinegar in salad dressings, in spring tonics, and even diluted as a kind of seasonal body splash or rinse. The plant lends itself naturally to that sort of old-world domestic beauty.
Violet tea is another gentle and lovely use. The flowers, and sometimes the young tender leaves, can be infused into a soft herbal tea that feels exactly like what it is: a small, fragrant gesture of seasonal kindness. Not dramatic. Not medicinal in the harsh modern sense. Just quietly useful.
And beyond the practical uses, there is also the matter of what the violet expresses.
Because some flowers have personalities.
The violet has long been associated with modesty, faithfulness, remembrance, hidden beauty, and quiet love. It is a flower of what is subtle but enduring. If the rose is the grand declaration, the violet is the private vow. It belongs to the kind of beauty that does not need to advertise itself and the kind of strength that survives without spectacle.
I think that is part of why it still enchants certain people and leaves others completely unmoved.
For me, collecting violets each spring is not just about herbal usefulness, though there is plenty of that. It is also about staying in relationship with the season in a more intimate way. The modern world tries to flatten everything into content, hacks, trends, and “wellness tips,” but a handful of sweet violets in the palm of your hand is a reminder that older forms of attention still exist. You can gather something beautiful. You can make something with it. You can let the year enter your home through a jar, a cup, a bottle, a spoonful.
And in a world that grows exhibitionist and noisier by the day, the violet remains what it has always been: a hidden flower, a useful flower, a faithful flower, and one of the loveliest reasons to go out and pay attention in early spring.
So yes, every year, I collect sweet violets.
Not because they are fashionable, even once they have been fashionable, but that’s long ago. Occasionally over time old fashions reappear.
Not because they fit neatly into anyone’s content calendar.
But because some flowers still carry the old world inside them, and the violet is one of them. And nowadays so many people have a nostalgia for a world that wasn’t loud but charming and well mannered.
And perhaps that is why the violet feels strangely modern again. Ours is a world that often celebrates the loud, the explicit, and the brazenly self-advertised, preferring flowers that seem almost to perform themselves.
The orchid, for all its beauty, belongs to a more theatrical category, all display, all suggestion, all exotic insistence. The violet is the opposite. It hides low in the grass, keeps its perfume close, and offers itself only to those who still possess the grace to notice what is not shouting. In that sense, it may be one of the most feminine flowers of all: modest without being weak, delicate without surrendering its character, and quietly unforgettable. And I think many women now are beginning to long again for precisely that kind of beauty, not crude exposure, but sweet depth, not spectacle, but secret radiance that reveals itself to those who can see beyond the surface.
