A Spring Time Favorite == Pansies

My beautiful mother and our daughter recently at the wedding. It has been said that  among  the greatest gifts my mother had was raising her children and gardening.

I have shared with you my mothers love of gardening and flowers here before. So let me take a second to share with her another one of her favorites. For years when me and my sisters were growing up we would always buy my mother flowers for Mothers day. Up in the northern part of Illinois where we grew up pansies appeared on the market around that time. Here in the southern part of the state you will find these beautiful pansies out in early April and even late March. Pansies are perhaps the first flowers that will appear on your local grocers shelf. They are cold weather plants and grow in the early part of spring in most locations. The beautiful heart shaped, overlapping petals with the variety of colors is what makes this small flower so attractive.

We would often grow these in flower pots or hanging planters where they helped ad to the beauty of the spring weather. One of the most popular and recognizable cool weather annual they will appear in a variety of bi-colors and while delicate they are strong flowers that will stand up to the cold of the early spring. They are cousins to the violets and are edible as well.

Enjoy pansies while you can though as they are short lived. These little flowers are normally planted yearly but can multiply the following year as well. The sun is a great place to grow them but the more shadier areas are where pansies seem to thrive. Pansies normally bloom from spring to early summer and in some areas may bloom again in the fall. Other areas may be able to grow pansies through the winter months. They provide the perfect edging that allows other flowers such as spring bulb plants to get attention as well.

The Bingo Series of pansies are some of the prettiest to me. There is a variety of 14 colors that range from pale blue to burgundy and commonly bloom from late winter to early spring

The Joker pansie seems to have a pronounced face to the flower. The bi-colored flower appears in complementary colors.

Pansies known as princess are small dainty flowers that appear in colors from cream to deep purple with yellow centers. Grown from spring to early summer.