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I have always loved pansies. They have such sweet faces, and where I live, they have brightened winter with their sunny colors since the first frost. An old-fashioned pansy ring sits on my kitchen table for three seasons, always filled with color and fragrance.
The Maven of Misrule, Martha Stewart, "discovered" pansy rings on her t.v. show not too long ago. Wrong-o Martha . My maiden aunt made me one in her ceramics class back in the sixites, and her mother had several old ones I'd love to have myself. Some garden sources have them on-line...I bought a new one from the Blue Hill Pottery in Maine a couple of years ago. I plant pansies in October. So do all the commercial landscapers in town, but I never get tired of them. Wide swaths of pink, yellow and blue make even the uglliest office building look a little less intimidating. One of the least attractive buildings near me is one the locals call "the Darth Vader building" or "the white collar prison." Yet, at is' feet there is a good quarter acre of heavily planted pansy ground cover reflected cheerfully in the black glass exterior for seven months a year. My garden color is almost all pansy during the winter, interspersed with Italian arum (pictum spp.) The arum adds green accent texture, disappearing about the same time I must bid the pansies' farewell. I am always glad to see spring arrive--and what gardener isn't?--but in North Atlanta, the pansy population becomes compost fodder with the onset of warmer temperatures. I feel genuine guilt when it's time to pull up my winter 'children,' but pull them I must, or the hostas underneath the will push them out of the ground! If you are just now putting out your pansies, like our Cottage Garden editor Barbara Martin, get your hands on a pansy ring. If you are about to pull up your pansies, get out your Kleenex and weep a bit, but take heart...fall is just around the corner. Go To Page: 1
The copyright of the article Pansies--Hello, or Goodbye? in Gardening in Southern U.S. is owned by Emily Levitt. Permission to republish Pansies--Hello, or Goodbye? in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
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