When I first moved to my current address, I was a bit disappointed when I was requested not to plant anything in the ground. I was asked to please limit myself to potting flowers or plants on my porches. While at first that seemed a big restriction, I soon remembered an earlier home I lived in where I was on an half acre. Initially, I was ecstatic. A former owner was a gardening wizard and had all kinds of things growing from Spring to Fall, and lots of beds for the annuals of my choice. I particularly loved planting around my mailbox each year. (I’d never had a free-standing mailbox in my life, and this stood at the line where my property met the road.)
As an artist, I was loving creating fabulous color areas and changing them each year. Having come from an apartment, I also loved mowing the grass and raking the leaves of the many, many trees on my half acre. By about the fifth year, the enthusiasm was wearing off, and while I still loved my wonderful piece of land, life had gotten busier and I realized that all that landscaping was a major commitment. I never stopped doing it, but it had also become work.
So here I have a much smaller and more manageable gardening world … seating arrangements and tables which hold whatever annuals I pot for any particular year … and it’s just fine. This year I fell in love with, (among other flowers), miniature pansies, and planted two pots with two colors, a two tone purple and a delicate purple and yellow. Yesterday I started to pinch them back so they wouldn’t become too leggy, and rather than toss what I’d taken, I put them in a jelly jar on my desk. And here they sit, bringing a smile to my face each time I look at them.
I am reminded of how little it can take to bring happiness, and how something so utterly simple can be so extraordinarily wonderful. That the pansies are sitting in a jelly jar from the nearby farm that makes their own delicious jams, jellies and sauces even makes me happy. There are times when life’s stresses and busy-ness take us away from what’s right in front of our noses. And sometimes what’s there is really all we need.
Those are probably violas or Johnny Jump Ups and they are not only pretty, they are edible too. Lovely in salads…bon appetit!
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Very likely they are other than miniature pansies – I chucked the little plastic stake before I potted them, and I trust you to know what they are! Eating them? probably not me … 🙂
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Simple pleasures are most times the best ones.
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The catch is remembering it, right? 🙂
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Aaah…your little pansies and the joy that accompanies lifted my own heart this morning Jeanne! I can imagine the sweet satisfaction and wonderfulness of having a jar of them sitting nearby on your desk as your work. Rest and inspiration in a jar!
Your miniature pansies are very similar to our European wild pansies or Violet Tricolor which grow in clusters on rocky ledges and cliffs near our home. I remember climbing up last summer to get a better view of them and to take some photos – they are so tiny and delicate. Worth the clamber 😀
Wishing you all things utterly beautiful, simple and wonderful this weekend! Sharon
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Sharon, thank you; I wish a wonderful weekend to you, too! What I find amazing is that these little flowers are happy in the jar and new buds are forming!
Jeanne
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