Ranunculus Elegance Viola

Ranunculus Elegance Viola

(Ranunculus asiaticus — Elegance® Series — Italian Premium Breeding)

Unleash Rich Royalty with Ranunculus Elegance Viola Corms

Ranunculus Elegance® Viola belongs to the prestigious Italian Elegance® breeding program, producing elite ranunculus cultivars for professional floriculture.

Unlike conventional ranunculus cultivars, the Elegance® collection was developed to maximize flower quality, stem strength, productivity, uniformity, and post-harvest performance.

Ranunculus Elegance Viola, with its deep purple to maroon color is dramatic, elegant and mysterious. It won a coveted Blue Ribbon at SAF’s 2019 Outstanding Variety Competition. The Society of American Florists Outstanding Variety Competition is one of the most recognised awards in the commercial floristry industry, evaluating varieties on the basis of vase life, stem length, flower quality, and overall commercial potential. The Blue Ribbon award for Viola confirms its performance against these professional cut flower standards.

Elegance® Viola is distinguished by luxurious fully double blooms displaying rich violet to deep wine-purple tones with silky overlapping petals that create remarkable depth and elegance. Its sophisticated dark color palette allows the flowers to perform equally well as dramatic focal blooms or as elegant companions within mixed floral compositions.

Large fully double flowers are produced on long, straight florist-grade stems with excellent productivity, making the cultivar highly suitable for professional cut flower production and premium floral design.

The flowers of Viola are deep wine red. A vibrant pink-purple ranunculus flower with multiple layers of petals. The delicate petals exhibit a gradient of purple hues, revealing intricate details and a sense of depth. The color of Viola is not a uniform flat purple — it is a graduated dark tone that moves between deep violet and maroon and wine-red depending on the opening stage of the flower, the temperature conditions during development, and the light in which the bloom is viewed. This color depth and variability is characteristic of the darkest ranunculus varieties and is part of the visual richness that makes Viola so distinctive in cut flower and event floristry contexts.

Like all cultivars in the Elegance® collection, Viola combines early flowering, vigorous growth, climate adaptability, and improved tolerance to warmer spring temperatures.

Variety Details

• Botanical Name: Ranunculus asiaticus
• Series: Elegance®
• Cultivar: Viola
• Award: Blue Ribbon — SAF 2019 Outstanding Variety Competition
• Variety Name Meaning: “Violet” in Italian and Latin — accurately references the violet-to-purple-to-maroon color range
• Plant Type: Tuberous perennial grown from corms
• Family: Ranunculaceae
• Flower Form: Fully double
• Flower Colors: Deep violet-purple exterior — layers of purple gradient — wine-red to maroon to deep purple inner tones
• Corm Size: Professional Grade 4/5
• Uses: Premium cut flowers, luxury floral arrangements, containers, borders, landscaping, wedding floristry.

Key Features

• Professional Italian breeding – Elegance® series, the gold standard for premium Italian ranunculus.
• Winner of a Blue Ribbon at the Society of American Florists (SAF) 2019 Outstanding Varieties Competition — a prestigious recognition awarded for
• outstanding flower quality, commercial appeal, bloom form, stem quality, and overall presentation.
• Rich deep violet to wine-purple fully double blooms.
• Silky layered petals with luxurious velvety appearance.
• Long, straight florist-grade stems.
• High productivity.
• Early flowering.
• Uniform flower quality and plant habit.
• Adaptable to different climates.
• Improved tolerance to warmer spring temperatures.
• Ideal for premium cut flower production, collectors, luxury gardens, and wedding floristry

Plant Information

• Plant Type: Tuberous perennial grown from corms
• Growth Habit: Compact basal foliage with tall, upright flowering stems
• Flower Form: Fully double
• Flower Color: Deep violet to rich wine-purple
• Stem Height: 40–60 cm (depending on growing conditions)
• Corm Size: Professional Grade 4/5
• Flowering Period: Approximately 6–8 weeks with proper care
• Productivity: Approximately 9–15 flowers per corm per season (Size 4/5)
• Light Requirements: Full sun
• Planting Depth: 5–6 cm
• Corm Spacing: Approximately 10 cm

Germination Instructions

• Before planting, soak the Elegance Viola corms in room-temperature water for 4–6 hours. Let a little water trickle into the soaking bowl to increase the oxygen in the water.
• After soaking, the corms can either be planted directly into the ground or pre-sprouted inside.
• For pre-sprouting, place the corms in flats with drainage holes, cover the corms lightly in moist soil, store at 7°C (45°F), and check on them daily.
• Plant the corms claws-down at a depth of 5 cm, spacing 10–15 cm apart, in good, well-draining soil enriched with compost.
• Do not water immediately after planting — wait until the first shoots emerge above soil level before beginning regular watering, as overwatering dormant corms is the most common cause of rot.
• Plants will flower about 90 days after planting.
• For floral arrangements, cut stems for bouquet making when the buds are just starting to show color for the longest vase life.
• In Kuwait, plant corms directly outdoors in October once temperatures begin to moderate.

Growing Tips

• Each premium corm (size 4/5) produces 9–15 blossoms per season on long, strong stems, making Viola ideal for professional cut flower production as well as garden displays.
• Soak the tubers before planting. At the time of flowering, water regularly and give extra nutrition.
• Removing spent flowers encourages continuous flowering.
• Elegance Viola ranunculus like good, well-draining soil.
• Enrich with compost for healthy plants and make sure the roots are never too wet.
• The dark violet-to-maroon color of Viola is most dramatically expressed in Kuwait’s cooler winter light of December through February — the lower sun angle and softer light quality allow the full gradient of purple hues across the petal layers to be perceived at its most vivid and most luxurious.
• In the cooler light, the color reads as a deep, mysterious purple with maroon undertones; in brighter late-season light, the bloom may read as a deeper red purple.
• The warmer-temperature tolerance of the Elegance series allows Viola to continue producing into March and early April in Kuwait’s warming spring. Keep flowers away from direct sunlight after cutting to prolong the beauty and vase life of the deeply pigmented blooms.

Gulf Planting Season

• Plant corms outdoors: October, once temperatures begin to moderate
• Pre-sprouting (recommended): Pre-sprout indoors at 7°C for 2–3 weeks before outdoor planting
• Flowering: Approximately 90 days after planting — January through March for October-planted corms
• Extended season advantage: Confirmed warmer-temperature tolerance and higher tolerance of warm climates extends productive window into March and early April
• Lift and store corms: After foliage dies back naturally in late spring, before summer heat arrives
• Note: Elegance® Viola’s Blue-Ribbon recognition at SAF’s 2019 Outstanding Variety Competition makes it the most formally certified ranunculus variety — a distinction that reflects consistent performance across professional cut flower standards of vase life, stem length, and commercial potential.
• In Kuwait’s cool-season cutting garden, October-planted Viola corms flower from January through March, with the confirmed warmer-temperature tolerance extending production into early April.
• The deep purple to wine-red color evolution of Viola across its opening stages — from tight bud to fully open bloom — adds temporal interest to the cut flower beyond a static single color, with the bloom progressively revealing its full gradient of purple hues as it opens.
• The shorter confirmed stem height of 20–40 cm compared to other Elegance varieties means Viola is most suited to intimate arrangements, bridal hand bouquets, and boutonnières where its dramatic color makes maximum impact at close range — as well as garden bed and container display where its compact stem height fits comfortably within the overall planting composition.

Companion Planting

• Viola is primarily grown for its outstanding ornamental and cut flower value, particularly for luxury event and wedding floristry.
• In the cool-season garden, the deep purple to wine-red tones of Viola creates their most dramatic visual impact when positioned alongside companions that either isolate the dark color or provide strong contrast.
• Pure white lisianthus or white anemones provide the starkest possible contrast — the deep purple of Viola against pure white creates a high-drama bicolor composition of considerable visual sophistication.
• Pale cream or ivory snapdragons extend the warm side of Viola’s wine-red tones while adding vertical spike form to complement the rounded bloom. Silver-leaved dusty miller intensifies the richness of Viola’s purple tones by providing a neutral metallic backdrop that prevents the dark color from absorbing into a dark background.
• Pale pink sweet peas provide a gentle romantic contrast that softens the drama of the deep purple without eliminating it.
• In a cutting garden context, Viola combines with exceptional effectiveness alongside the creamy white of Bianco Sfumato or the pure white of Bianco Striato — the deep purple and white combination creating the most classically elegant high-contrast composition available from the Elegance series.

Garden & Floristry Uses

• Elegance® Viola is an outstanding cultivar for premium cut flower production, luxury floral arrangements, wedding bouquets, collector gardens, patio containers, ornamental borders, and sophisticated landscape planting.
• Its rich velvety violet flowers create dramatic focal points in bouquets while combining beautifully with white, blush pink, cream, and lavender flowers for elegant floral compositions.