How do you begin your gardening season?
With seeds?
With hopes and dreams? (Hopefully!)
With pansies and violas?
Or with all of the above?
Let’s choose all of the above, but hold a special place in our gardening hearts for the first pansies and violas.
And by special place, I mean go overboard with those pansies and violas and plant lots and lots of them.
After all, spring comes just once a year so we might as well make the most of it.
(Ha! I look at people who go all out with Christmas decorations because “Christmas comes just once a year” and think they are nuts, but perhaps I shouldn’t since they might think I’m nuts, too, because of the number of pansies and violas I buy each spring.)
Of course, I pair the pansies and violas with crocuses. Lots and lots of crocuses. So many crocuses that are spreading and coming back more and more every year. They hold me over until the pansies and violas are ready at the greenhouse.
I’ve been to the local greenhouse twice so far this spring. On the first trip, I bought lots of pansies and violas. On the second trip, I was only going to buy some alyssum and snapdragons. But then I was in the greenhouse with all the pansies and violas, and some pansies called ‘Blueberry Thrill’ made a good case for also coming home with me. They begged! They teased! They cajoled! They bloomed!
Could you have resisted them? (See picture above.)
I would think not, if you have a beating heart.
Anyway, the season has begun, and I was feeling like I’ve been neglecting my blog here, so I made up this post which is kind of making fun of me for my pansy and viola obsession. But that’s okay. I’m a gardener. It wouldn’t be the first time someone has pointed at my garden and had questions, not about the plants, but about me.
I then tell them my motto is, “If your neighbors don’t think you’re a little crazy, you need to up your gardening game.”
Go all in or go home!
The season has begun!
I’ve always loved pansies. I wanted to plant more as a kid but in northern Oklahoma (a little bit more northern than Dee!) my mom wouldn’t plant them as they just lasted a couple of months before the hot summers came. I live in Texas now and you can plant pansies in November and have them, typically until Mother’s Day. That’s exciting. But the varieties aren’t always that exciting. I love violas too!
My first purchases are pansies and violas, too! Plus I have to have stock for the scent. I just took a note to look for “Antique Shades” pansies, which are a lovely mix of peach shades…I think they are new, so I probably won’t find them. Greenhouses aren’t open here yet, April 1st!